The Van of Valor program is the brainchild of Kevin and Lauren Wallace. Their mission is to travel to all of the lower 48 states and record the stories of at least 100 Purple Heart recipients or Gold Star families. Kevin had served in the Air Force for seven years when the opportunity came up to become a Combat Photographer. On April 3, 2011 Kevin was attached to a team of 12 cavalry scouts tasked with establishing an observation post [...]
Terry “Ranger” Johnson’s path toward fulfilling his dreams was a rocky one. His “comeback” story is one of resiliency, commitment to one’s goals and is full of messages that should inspire every one of us. Terry grew up off of a dirt road five miles outside of a tiny town in east Texas. While Terry is a dedicated patriot, he admits he joined for the money and to get out of that small town. While serving at his first [...]
Coast Guard pilot John Whiddon has been awarded two Distinguished Flying Cross medals. But the enemy he faced was not the Viet Cong or Iraqi air defenses. It was 30 foot seas, 70 knot wind gusts and freezing waters off the coast of Alaska. John was born in England and his father served in the Royal Navy. Having finished college, he had applied for the US Coast Guard but had not received an answer. So he applied to the Royal [...]
The Gouge is a term derived from the second World War. Many of the World War II Navy crews were inexperienced. The Gouge developed as a culture where sailors shared important knowledge and proactively trained each other in their duties to prepare to emergency situations. The Gouge philosophy guided Vice Admiral Robert Harward through forty years in the Navy and a successful career as an international corporate executive. Much of Hayward’s career was spent with the Navy SEALs. During his [...]
FREEDOM COFFEE COMPANY Freedom Coffee Company was born out of tragedy. Hope Harrison’s husband Dustin was killed by terrorists while operating an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance drone for the Department of Defense in Kenya. Hope and Dustin had just started a family and had agreed that this would be Dustin’s the last overseas assignment so he could spend more time with his family. He was killed nine days before being scheduled to come home. Like many Gold Star widows, the [...]
Jeff Nelligan is an Army Veteran that is recognized as one of the foremost commentators in the world of American Parenting. His book “Four Lessons from My Three Sons; How You Can Raise Resilient Kids” spent four months on the Amazon Parenting Best Seller’s List. His works have also been cited in numerous parenting magazines. In addition to his Army Service, he formerly worked for three members of our US Congress and was twice a Presidential appointee. He currently works [...]
Belleau Wood is the site of one of the most storied battles in US Marine Corps lore. Marine Veteran Jason Angell gathered up his family and made a “pilgrimage” to this famous World War I battlefield. His experience is recounted in the Havok Journal article “A Pilgrimage to Belleau Wood”. Jason is a ten year Marine Corps Veteran with three deployments to Iraq. He and his wife felt strongly that their teen aged children should be exposed to the sacrifices [...]
"Homefront Stories" is a collection of fictional short stories written by Victoria Kelly inspired by her life as a military spouse. Her 2015 work, “When Men Go Off to War” is a collection of poems written while her husband was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and captures the hopes, anxieties and intimacies of the military spouse during times of war. “Prayers of an American Wife” is a collection of poems that highlights the displacement women experience when their husbands deploy [...]
Joe Lowrey was deployed with the 7th Special Forces Group in Afghanistan. In July of 2014 an enemy machine gun round pierced the front of his helmet, traveled across the top of his skull and exited the back of his head. He was given an 11% chance of survival and his Green Beret teammates gathered by his bedside while Joe was administered the Last Rites. After thirty days in a coma, Joe DID survive with all his mental faculties but [...]
“The Pledge to America” author Drago Dzieran grew up under the oppressive socialist/communist government in Poland. The book describes his journey from political prisoner to a Navy SEAL. Drago says that “The Pledge to America” was not intended to be a “SEAL book”. Rather, his reasoning for writing the book was to provide a lens for fellow Americans to recognize how special our country is. Drago had a rough upbringing in poverty and soon turned to violence as a survival [...]