In this powerful episode of Veteran Led, we sit down with Donald Dunn, Army combat Veteran and author of Echoes Of War. Donald shares his incredible journey from serving in the Special Forces to battling PTSD and finding healing through podcasting and creative expression.​
Discover how Donald transitioned from military service to civilian life, founding Heroes Voice Media Foundation to empower Veterans through media. Learn about his journey launching multiple Veteran-focused radio stations and podcast streams, and how he used writing and podcasting as tools for personal healing and community building.​
Donald offers invaluable insights on the unique challenges Veterans face in the “politically correct” civilian world and the importance of Veteran-specific media categories. He shares how creative outlets can aid in managing PTSD and anger issues and explores the power of Veteran communities in the podcasting world.​
Whether you’re a Veteran seeking inspiration, a podcaster looking to make an impact, or simply interested in stories of resilience and transformation, this episode offers profound lessons and moving stories.​
For all the resources Donald mentioned in the show follow this link.​
​Click here for Donald’s book Echoes Of War.
Donald Dunn: As leaders in the military, as we grew up our job was to provide purpose, direction, and motivation. The best way to do that was be the example, not be the dictator and say, “I’m going to motivate you until your arms fall off.”
John Berry: Welcome to the Veteran Led podcast, where we talk with leaders who use their military experiences to develop great organizations and continue to serve their communities. Today’s guest is Donald Dunn, author of Echoes Of War and CEO and founder of Heroes Voices Media Foundation. Donald, welcome to the show. We’ve talked before. You’ve been in Nebraska. We’ve got a lot in common. Both been to Bosnia, both been to Iraq. But the thing that’s happened most recently has been your book. For those of us that have written a book, it’s tough. So why did you write Echoes Of War?
Donald Dunn: So the book actually started out when I got help, I started digesting and realizing the things that I did to my family. And the one thing that I never did for them was tell them about the things I went through. It was always, I’m good, everything was fine, so forth. And then to expect them to understand the things I went through and the problems I was having after the fact was unreal because they had no idea what I went through. So it started out as really as just a letter to my kids and my wife to explain the things I went through and the things that I know I needed help with, and so forth. My daughter is the one that convinced me to actually publish it.
John Berry: And it’s important for the audience to know that you spent one-third of your 20-year career deployed, and you really didn’t talk to your family about the deployments. And in fact, on one of your last deployments, your wife just gave you a kiss and said, “I’ll see you in a year.”
Donald Dunn: Yeah, it’s crazy how even the family members throughout this war become numb to it. I’m sure I’m not the only person out there that was like that. When you got home, how was things? Normal deployment, everything’s good. And when you’ve deployed 68 months, man, it becomes just like you’re getting up, going to work, and coming home. And so she just became numb to it, too.
John Berry: You had the great honor of serving pre-911 and post-911. So you got to go on that Bosnia deployment. I was on a Bosnia deployment, and then everything ramps up after September 11. So take us through that. Did you know that you were going to be a career 20-year soldier, or did you think, “Hey, I’m probably going to get out?” At what point did you know that this was going to be a 20-year career and you were going to keep deploying until you retired?
Donald Dunn: So I was not planning. I came in for the college money. Unlike a lot of these post-9/11 Veterans that came in afterwards, they knew what they were getting into. I came in because I needed a job. I had a wife, and I needed some college money because I wanted to work as a mechanic. So that’s what I came in for. And then my first duty station was Korea. And that’s what I told the recruiter, all I want is to not have to go to Korea. So they made my first duty station Korea. And then I came back from that and went to Fort Bliss. Man, it was a sh*t hole, too. I hated it. The leadership was horrible. And I was like, I am getting out I’m done with this. And I just couldn’t deal with Fort Bliss anymore. So they had this program where you could reenlist early to get out of there, or I could have stayed there for 18 more months in ETS.
Donald Dunn: So I said, I’ll do one more hit just to get out of here. And I reenlisted for Germany, and I went to a mechanized infantry unit, and I got to see what real leadership really was about.
Donald Dunn: I was lucky enough to be put under some amazing NCOs, that helped me and changed that trajectory of my career. So after that, I volunteered to go in the Special Ops community, and at that point, I knew I was going to be in for a career.
John Berry: While you’re in the Special Ops community, you got the opportunity to enter the Thunderdome. Tell us about that.
Donald Dunn: Coming from the regular Army, going into a Special Ops unit, it is like night and day. The budgets are different. The way they do things is different. And that particular day, it was my first week with the unit. And they had this room. They called it the Thunderdome. And whenever people had issues or objections, they would have you go in there and put on the gloves and deal with it. And they had this one particular E4. He never would go in there. He would always talk a bunch of stuff and make fun of people, but he wouldn’t actually go in and do anything. And so the platoon Sergeant told him to, look, you’re going to go in there today. We’re not going home until you go in there. And I was sitting in the back. I really didn’t understand too much about what was going on. And they made him pick somebody, and I was the new guy, and he selected me. The platoon Sergeant was the only one that actually knew that I had boxed prior to this.
Donald Dunn: And so when we went in there, he whispered to me. He’s like, “Look, I know you fought before, so let him know you’re there, but don’t kill him.”
Donald Dunn: And I was like, Okay. And so he came out and I hit him. And it was like, he threw one punch. I hit him with a right cross, and he just dropped. And the platoon Sergeant called it. And I was just standing there like, “What is going on?” Because that would have never happened in the regular Army. They’re not going to allow you to do anything like that. And so you got stuff like that. You got people, everybody’s first name basis. My commander was Dave. It was just such…everybody pulled up their sleeves, and it didn’t matter what the task was or what your rank was. It was about, accomplish the mission and let’s move on. And everybody volunteered to be there. Nobody didn’t want to be there. And so you had a different caliber of a warrior.
John Berry: If you go to this specific unit, when you’re deployed, it’ll be all action all the time. But I have yet to hear from anybody who didn’t reach at least some level of boredom on a deployment.
Donald Dunn: Yeah. And that’s where the funny stories come from, is how do you entertain yourself? It’s not going to be with AFN–Armed Forces Network–because the shows you’re watching there or the radio you’re listening is not going to be that interesting. So you come up with ways. And any soldier that’s been in the desert is going to tell you about the camel spiders and the scorpion fights that they would have, all the sand vipers. We had an E7 that had just a collection of water bottles. He filled them up full of beer, and every time he would catch a sand viper or another type of snake, he would capture them and put them in these and preserve them in the alcohol from the beer. And one day, just a hilarious story, to pass time we had internet actually ran into our tent, and he found a old fake disk in the junkyard, like a DirecTV disk. And so he put that on top of the tent and was telling everybody, “Oh, yeah, we actually bought DirecTV.” That’s how we got TV.
Donald Dunn: And all it was was just ran from…it was just SIPRNet is all it really was.
Donald Dunn: And he would go out and create these traps. We kept our food. The tent would get raided every day. And something would be eating the hell out of it. And he thought it was like a stray cat or something like that. And so he’d build this trap, and every day he’d go check it, and the trap would be just destroyed. And he kept getting more extravagant and bigger and stronger materials. And finally, one day, I’m standing out there and I see him headed to the tent to go look to see what’s in his trap. And all of a sudden, I hear him scream, and he takes off running. I didn’t even ask questions. I took off running. I figured, if he’s running, something serious is coming. And I guess what had been eating our food was a Bobcat or something because this bloody cat came running out of the tent, and I guess he’d gotten all cut up from the wire and everything inside there. I said, “Man, you got to stop messing with the wildlife out here. This ain’t America, man.”
John Berry: It’s during those things that we remember the camaraderie and the things we did when we were bored, that those are the good stories. You started telling some of those stories in a podcast that you started called Two Drunk Dudes in a Gun Room, right?
Donald Dunn: Yeah.
John Berry: I’m going to fast forward to that because I think this is really important. You do your 20 years, you realize you’ve done some damage to your relationships by not talking about what’s happening. You go to the VA, you’re not really getting the help you need at first, you’re struggling, and then all of a sudden, you decide to start a podcast with a First Sergeant. Tell us about that.
Donald Dunn: Yeah, I closed my trucking company and moved to Missouri. I was offered a job from my old First Sergeant, and we had a couple of soldiers that back-to-back had committed suicide. And so we decided to start this podcast to just bring our soldiers back into the fold. We’d release one episode a week and went Facebook Live every Friday, and we’d just have some drinks and reach out and try to get our old soldiers to come on, and we’d tell jokes. It was just about checking on people and making sure everybody was doing good. The name actually came from because he owned a little bit of a gun business, and I would go over and help him build some guns, and we’d reload ammo and then go to the range and shoot and stuff like that. We always drank some beer, or I’d have some bourbon while we’re in there working. That’s where the name came from, Two Drunk Dudes in a Gun Room. The whole show was done there.
Donald Dunn: But the thing that came from it was direct opposite for me and him. I started to get some therapy from this. Talking with the VA and the counselors was not helping for me.
Donald Dunn: Up to this point, I never talked about a lot of the stuff that I went through. I didn’t talk about it with my family. I didn’t talk about it with other people. Next thing I know, I say next thing, but like I said, three quarters of the way through Season 1 I find myself talking to strangers that were also Veterans that we were bringing on our show, and hearing their stories was making me relate to them and be able to start talking about stuff. I slowly noticed that weight was starting to lift off my shoulders. It was not the same for him. He was going through the VA. They had just recently changed his medication, and he struggled to deal with some of the stories. So at the end of Season 1, he dropped off, and I kept podcasting. And from there, that’s what started the nonprofit was Season 2 of that podcast.
John Berry: It’s interesting–I found that for some Veterans, talking about it and the camaraderie and just dealing with it helps. And for others, it doesn’t. And for some, you can have a few drinks and it can be pleasant. And for others, the drinking becomes a problem. And for you, you decided that, hey, you were starting to heal and you didn’t need the booze anymore, which also created a rift.
Donald Dunn: Yeah, that was another problem because up to that point, I was going over there and we were drinking, hanging out, and that was become part of it. If we went fishing, we drank. If we went to the river, we drank. If we wanted to go hang out somewhere, we went someplace that had sold beer. When I started getting better about talking about things, I found that the alcohol hindered that. It didn’t allow me to be clear-minded and more focused on what I was saying. That’s the part I liked. I think that’s what stopped me from drinking was because I got to the point where that weight would come off my shoulders and I could actually sleep a little bit at night and not have some of the problems that I was using alcohol to be able to accomplish. But he didn’t have that guy to come over there and drink with him all the time anymore. And that did create a bit of a rift between us.
John Berry: And it’s during this time that you noticed that there are certain behaviors that are tied to your post-traumatic stress. And it’s not just reliving the combat. It’s you realize that you’re getting impulsive with spending, that there’s just behaviors that you’re trying to figure out. Why am I doing this? So take us on that journey.
Donald Dunn: Yeah, I think that was one of the problems, man, wasn’t just the impulsiveness, but it was things that I was doing that would drive that impulsiveness. Before we moved to Missouri and before the podcast, before I got any help at all, the person I hated the most was myself. I was having issues with not wanting to deploy anymore, not–in the back of my mind, always telling myself what a piece of crap I am, that my family would be better off. It got to the point where I was even planning how to end my life and still, after I’m gone, be able to take care of my family. It wasn’t until later, after I got help, I realized I really didn’t want to kill myself. I just didn’t want to live anymore. I didn’t like the person that I seen. Unfortunately, my son looked a lot like me. He talked like me. He acted like me. And so there was problems between me and him.
Donald Dunn: I took a lot of my frustration out on him just because I hated myself and not even understanding it, but trying to justify it in so many different ways.
John Berry: So let me take you to what you’re doing now. So you found that the podcasting was therapeutic, and you decide that, “I want to help more Veterans get into this.” And then this opens up a whole new media world. So tell us about that.
Donald Dunn: Yeah. So the first guest I came on that brought this on was Scotty Hasting. He was the first musician that came on my podcast. I’m listening to his story, and if you’ve never heard it, it’s a very impactful story. But the thing that caught me the most was how I realized we all, as podcasters or singers, we’re fighting that same battle, and that’s trying to get known. There’s so many algorithms, and you have to figure that connection out and have the talent to get known and get heard and get put in these big places. And I also realized that this is how these guys were paying their bills. You’re not making anything from streaming music. I had a full-time job, so I didn’t really care if one person listened to my show or 10,000 people. It became therapy for myself. But people like Scotty was trying to put food on their table. And to get that, he had to be on a stage somewhere because nobody sells CDs out of the back of their car anymore.
Donald Dunn: So that’s where I came up with this hairbrained idea. I just said, “Why don’t I just start a radio station?”
Donald Dunn: It’ll just be for Veterans only. They’ll give me their music and we’ll start this radio station. And Facebook heard me. And the next day, I seen an ad on Facebook. It said, “Start your own radio station for $39.95.” I said, well, there it is. That’s it. So I did it, started reaching out to these Veterans, and then I learned this word. What do they call it? Oh, “copyright”? Yeah. So I got a rough lesson in what it was going to take. Operation Encore was working with me at that point, and they gave me the ins and outs of what I was going to have to do. So we turned it into a small little business at this point, and I went and got licensed through BMI and ASCAP, and we started a radio station. And since then, it’s grown to three different channels. We got a mixed genre, which is our Vet Mix. We’ve got Semper Fi Country and Ranger Rockwave.
Donald Dunn: The cool part about that is it’s led to the nonprofit, Heroes Voices Media Foundation. We’ve opened up for podcasters now. So we have what’s called Military United Podcast Streams. The goal is to get Veterans talking.
Donald Dunn: I found a support group through podcasting called the Warrior’s Way Mindset. Amazing program. It’s a for-profit company, but it’s an amazing program. It’s helped me deal with some of my anger issues. It’s given me some of my life back, and I think it can help a lot of people. So every chance I get, I will throw it out there. But I would have never found that had I not been podcasting. And I think it’s important to get these Veterans to keep them talking. And if you like any other podcast and you start looking at your stats, you’re probably going to quit before you actually get and find that help. So we help them, show them little tricks to get some downloads, keep doing it. If they’re short on equipment, and that’s what’s stopping them, we help get some of the equipment for them and get them started. And that’s where the podcast grew. From there, it grew into a Roku channel.
Donald Dunn: So now they’re on TV as well. And then we spun it off for our authors, and we started a similar program for them. It’s called Words From Warriors. We help connect them with publishers.
Donald Dunn: We show them how to publish independently if they want to do that. I bring in Veterans. We do webinars to teach them how to write. In a few select cases, we are actually collaborating on a Gold Star Mom’s story for her son. So we get to do a lot of cool stuff that would have never happened without programs like this. On top of that, we’re celebrating the Veterans’ wins. You go through those dark times and you come out on the other side and then you say, “Oh, yeah, I used to be a musician. I want to go back to being a musician, except now I’m 20 years older. Sony is not interested in me no more, and I’m competing against an 18-year-old.” And so to have those places where they can share their camaraderie, their stories, their experiences with like-minded people, and celebrate the new you, I think is amazing. The big goal from all of this is at one point you’re going to see what’s called the VMAs, the Veteran Music Awards.
Donald Dunn: We will be in Nashville. We’re going to get it on the stages. We’re going to have some of the major industry leaders that served in the military host it, and we’re going to vote and bring these independent grinding bands into that kind of arena, get them on TV, playing their music, get them the experience in front of the paparazzi, the red carpet.
Donald Dunn: They may not all be the next Garth Brooks, but for that one day, they can be. Hopefully, it’ll raise some money for Veteran causes similar to what the [Ms Veteran America] Pageant does. They raise money for homeless female Veterans with children because there’s not a lot of shelters for children. It’s ran just like the Miss America Pageant. They get to compete, that competition spirit that’s in all of us warriors, and they’re doing a great cause and helping the community.
John Berry: Now we get to the part of the show where we talk about some of the leadership that you mentioned in the book, Echoes Of War. What are the three best examples of leadership that you either exhibited yourself or observed? And what are the three worst examples of leadership?
Donald Dunn: Actually, I just discussed this with my current job. We’re going through some leadership training, and I didn’t really talk about the best moments because I think I didn’t realize it at the time what some of the best moments were. But when you do something bad as a bad leader, you instantly know it. I found out later that I was a bad leader. You knew at that moment what you did wasn’t working. But when I got out, I had so many soldiers come up to me and say, “Hey, you are the reason why I stayed in” or “Your leadership style was amazing.” They still reach out to me to this day when they need advice, whether they’re in the military or not. My Facebook is full of soldiers that I served with, and I still have the same phone number that I had in 2000. So all these same soldiers still reach out to me via text, Facebook–whatever it is. To me, that’s the sign that you did the right thing as a leader.
Donald Dunn: I impacted their life, and I gave everything I had to them. They had more of my time than my own family did.
Donald Dunn: That bond, watching soldiers cry. I had soldiers that we almost got hit with a mortar round. Luckily, it didn’t go off. Had it gone off, the truck we was in would have been destroyed, and it scared the crap out of one of our soldiers. I wouldn’t get him to come out of a building. He would not take his gear off for nothing anymore. And at some point, he decided he was going to kill himself. And having all those different environments make you react to different people handling things differently. I think it builds you as a leader. So it gives you those tools to reach in your toolbox and say, I need you to go here and go do this, knowing that you’re putting that person at risk, but still doing it. And those are things that good leaders can do. A bad example on that same token, and it came to my last deployment. By this time, the PTSD I had was starting to affect me mentally and doing things against my soldier.
Donald Dunn: We were in a convoy coming back from Fallujah, and one of my soldiers wasn’t paying attention. He thought because he wasn’t up in the hatch as a gunner, he didn’t really have to watch or do anything, and he was on his phone playing some game or something.
Donald Dunn: I looked back, I said, “You need to put your phone away and start putting your head on a swivel and watching.” He said, okay. He went back to playing his game to finish it. But I only gave him 30 seconds, and I didn’t see the phone moving, so I swatted it and hit it out of his hands. As a leader, there was a much better way I could have handled that. And those are the things that bother me. But I think what I did later as a truck driver to one of my soldiers was probably the thing. Everybody remembers when Trump came into office, there was a lot of negativity as he was running in the campaign. I was not in a good space. Some of the stuff that you heard on the radio really affected me more than maybe the average person that could think more clearly. I started having hatred for people. I had a soldier that reached out to me that was not a Republican fan that ended up costing us to not speak anymore over some nonsense about people we’re never going to see or meet or have dinner with or really know what their true opinions are.
Donald Dunn: But I was stubborn and full of hatred and dealing with other issues and just vomited those issues on him. I have tried since then to reach out to him and find him to apologize because he did nothing wrong. Last thing he said to me was, “This is unfortunate seeing somebody do this from somebody that I looked up to my whole military career.” Those were the last words we said each other.
John Berry: Yeah, that stings.
Donald Dunn: Yeah. And again, I’m not making excuses. We’re all responsible for our actions. So just because I had PTSD and was going through things doesn’t mean that I get a free pass. Those are things that I have to go back in my life and fix. And I think that’s what good leaders would do. So the book came out to help educate my family, and it turned out that it’s also educating some other family members. I’ve seen some amazing reviews on there that…I just joked with people, I told them when I released the book, I was going to promote it in all the pharmacies next to the Melatonin. So it’d be the next best sleep aid. But I’m honored and blessed that people have reacted to it the way they did. I’m glad of the person I have become because this last year and a half, I’ve really gone back and tried to put effort in fixing some of those things, especially with my son, the things that I did.
John Berry: Yes, success is improvement. We all have done things as leaders that have…that we’re not proud of. It’s even more difficult when we do things as fathers and husbands and friends that we’re not proud of and to go back and try to make amends and own it and say, “I was wrong. I was absolutely wrong. This is on me. Please forgive me.”
Donald Dunn: I hope maybe one day he sees a podcast because I talked about this situation on a lot of different podcasts. I don’t know if he’s just not on Facebook no more or if he’s blocked me because I blocked him right after the last words we’ve said to each other. And since then, I haven’t been able to find him to make amends. So I think at some point, it’ll happen. It’s a small world. And that’s one thing we learned in the military is you’re always going to run into somebody you know or somebody from your old background or something because the Army is a small place.
John Berry: Yeah. And the interesting thing is it’s a small place, and we run into each other again and again until we don’t because we never know when that last time is that we’re going to see that buddy. And so I think it’s important that every opportunity we get, that we reach out and we let them know that we care, or if they did something amazing to tell them that. I mean, it’s too easy to get negative, especially when we’re in the heat of the moment and things are serious. And it’s really easy to lose your temper. But it takes a lot guts to come back and say, “Hey, you know what? I’m sorry. I was wrong. This is all on me. This is not about you. This is about me and my behavior and what I’m dealing with. This is not a reflection of you and who you are. And I think when we can own that as leaders, we gain a lot more credibility.” Because when we reach that level of authenticity, the other person knows that we care.
John Berry: But more importantly, we’ve shown them, “Hey, we are mature enough as leaders to realize that we’re not perfect, that we are all human and that we want to get better, and we want to improve, and we want to acknowledge when we fall short of the standard.”
John Berry: I think that that’s hard to do. But once you start doing it, it gets a lot easier because you realize like, man, “I’ve screwed up a lot and I’ve got a lot to fix here.” And it’s just progress. One apology at a time.
Donald Dunn: Yeah, absolutely. As leaders in the military, as we grew up, our job was to provide purpose, direction, and motivation. And the best way to do that was be the example, not be the dictator and say, “I’m going to motivate you until your arms fall off.” It was by showing that you were out there with them, you understood what they were going through, you feel that pain with them, and then you take the time to know them. When I say that, it’s important that you know the background that these soldiers are coming from. Not everybody learns the same way. Some of those people if you’re real soft to, they’ll run over you and you’re not going to get them to do anything. Vice versa, if you’re the dictator, some people clam up and you’re not going to get them to do anything. So as a leader, you have to adjust those skills and learn about those. And it comes from caring. You have to care enough to say, Hey, how are you doing at the house?
Donald Dunn: Notice those behavior changes, performance changes. And if you don’t take that time, you’re not going to take the time to learn.
John Berry: Outstanding, outstanding points. And we’re going to have everything in the show notes, but Donald Dunn, if people want to read Echoes Of War, where can they find it and where can they learn more about your nonprofit, Heroes Voice Media?
Donald Dunn: So if you go to HeroesVoiceMediaFoundation.org, our Linktree is there. It’ll take you to all of our other web pages and our programs. If you want to listen to the radio station, it’s VeteranVoiceRadio.com. You can find all the stations there. The apps are live on Google, and they should be on Apple this week as well. So by the time this airs, you’ll be able to find the apps, Semper Fi Radio or Ranger Rockwave, either one. And if you want the book, WordsFromWarriors.org, you can find my book and a whole bunch of other Veteran authors that have released great books as well.
John Berry: Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting Veteran leadership in business, strengthening the Veteran community, and getting Veterans all of the benefits that they earn. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching @veteranled on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.
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