Grateful American

by Gary Sinise

  My foundation’s “Soaring Valor” program focuses on supporting our aging World War II veterans. Years ago, Tom Hanks asked me to lend my voice to a film called Beyond All Boundaries that Tom helped produce for the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. The forty-twominute film lays out the entire broad picture of what happened in the war, and I portrayed the voice of Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent who wrote dispatches from the war zones in Europe and Asia. A special theater was built at the museum to showcase this film.

  My involvement with the film sparked a relationship with the museum, and I called my uncle Jack who, at twenty-four, had been the navigator on a B-17 bomber during World War II. I thought about what I was doing when I was twenty-four years old. Uncle Jack was fighting a war at that age, and I was in a basement doing theater. Very different early years. I offered to fly him down to New Orleans to visit the museum for the first time. While he was there, museum staff recorded him on video, discussing the history of his war years. Uncle Jack passed away on October 27, 2014, and afterward I contacted the museum and asked them to send me the DVD my uncle had recorded. When I sat down and watched it, I choked up, grateful that I had this recorded history of Uncle Jack telling his story.

  I thought every family of a World War II veteran should have a DVD like this—and every veteran should have the opportunity to see the museum and be recorded. I knew that time was short, because we’re so rapidly losing our World War II veterans. So, in 2015, the foundation created our Soaring Valor program and arranged funding for one of the museum’s historians to travel around the country to record the stories of our veterans who could not visit the museum in New Orleans.

  We absolutely need to record and learn the lessons these veterans have to share. Never in the history of this country—and the world—has there been a more devastating and destructive war than World War II. With an estimated eighty to one hundred million people killed, it remains the most horrific conflict in human history. The line between freedom and tyranny was never so thin—and so clear—and all of us today are the beneficiaries of those who sacrificed in defense of freedom during those years. Had Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, and fascist Italy succeeded in their attempts at global conquest, each person alive today would be living very differently.

  My uncle Jack flew with the Eighth Air Force 379th Bomb Group out of Kimbolton, England. His squadron, the 526th bombardment squadron, attacked enemy targets over Nazi Germany and occupied Europe that included bombing runs during the Battle of Northern France and the Battle of the Bulge. He told me that on many of his missions, as far as he could see—in front of him, behind him, and to the side—were airplanes. Hundreds of airplanes, sometimes more, all heading in the same direction. Many would not make it back. One time, just by chance, another navigator, Don Casey, switched missions with my uncle. On that mission, Don’s B-17 was shot down and the crew had to bail out. Don was captured by the Germans and spent eighteen months in a prison camp before eventually being liberated by Patton’s Third Army. He and Uncle Jack remained friends until their deaths, and Don always reminded Jack how lucky he was to swap flights that day. Of the 330 missions flown by his bomb group in B-17 Flying Fortresses, 141 were shot out of the sky. On one of Jack’s runs, his B-17 was so shot up it only had one engine left, and they barely made it back over the English Channel, crash landing just as they reached the shore. Luckily all survived. It was truly a dangerous duty. Absolute hell above the earth.

  I asked him if he felt scared going up in those bombers and having those big guns fired at him from the ground below, watching his buddies in other planes being shot down. Mission after mission, he went up and performed the same dangerous job. He said that when they approached the bomb site and the antiaircraft fire and flak were the most intense, as he looked through his scopes he was so focused on navigating for the bombardier that he didn’t have much time to be scared. Nobody wanted to be in that horror, but he and his fellow troops knew what they needed to do to survive. They had only two outcomes possible during those years. It was either live under tyranny or live in freedom. It was either kill or be killed. And they did what they had to do.

  While Uncle Jack was forthcoming in discussing his war experience, I always felt that there was a lot more he experienced that he didn’t want to talk about, that he was simply unable to tell me about the many horrible things he’d witnessed during his time in World War II.

  In addition to funding the historian, with the support of American Airlines we began flying groups of World War II veterans from all over the country to the museum. Sometimes we provide individual tickets for the veterans and their families, and other times the vets fly on special charters. In 2017, we began teaming each veteran with a high school student, so the older and younger generations could travel together. The older vets imparted lessons learned from the war years to the students. I have been on several of these trips myself, traveling with hundreds of veterans and many students since the program began, and it is such an honor to be able to do this. In time, after all our country’s World War II veterans are gone, we hope to continue the program by providing field trips for high school students to the museum. The significance of what happened during this conflict can never be underestimated. Future generations must understand and appreciate the price paid during World War II and the tremendous cost of freedom. The story told at the National World War II Museum is invaluable for our students’ education today, and I am so proud to be a supporter of this magnificent place.

  As we grew as a foundation, we expanded our programs and outreach throughout the country. I contacted friends to ask if they’d become ambassadors for the foundation. If there’s ever an event I can’t attend, the ambassadors take my place and represent the foundation’s mission. They attend fund-raisers and ribbon cuttings. They write and speak. Each member of our Ambassadors Council is individually selected for exceptional character and patriotism.

  Our first ambassador was comedian and actor Tom Dreesen, who’d served in the Marine Corps. Entertainers Joe Mantegna and D. B. Sweeney and celebrity chef Robert Irvine soon joined the council.

  Medal of Honor recipients Sammy L. Davis, Drew Dix, and Jay Vargas joined, as did Mary Eisenhower from People to People International.

  Prominent retired military personnel became ambassadors, including Lieutenant General Rick Lynch and his wife, Sarah Lynch; US Navy SEAL William Wagasy; Vietnam veteran Major Gary Weaver; and Captain John Woodall, a retired firefighter.

  And wounded warriors round out the council today: Colonel Gregory Gadson, Sergeant Bryan Anderson, Staff Sergeant Travis Mills, Corporal Juan Dominguez, Corporal Garrett Jones, Master Sergeant Cedric King, Master Sergeant John Masson, Lieutenant Jason Redman, Sergeant First Class Mike Schlitz, and Captain Leslie Smith and her service dog, Isaac.

  These friends all make an invaluable contribution to the outreach of the Gary Sinise Foundation.

  Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time visiting wounded troops in hospitals. Some of these men and women are in there a long time. One of the marines I met at Naval Medical Center San Diego was Staff Sergeant Jason Ross. In March 2011, during his second deployment to Afghanistan, Jason lost both of his legs and part of his pelvic bone when an IED exploded. Doctors gave him less than a 2 percent chance of survival, but Jason never stopped fighting. Complications set in, and surgeons kept needing to take more and more from his legs until eventually all his hips were gone. To date, he’s undergone more than 240 surgeries. Basically, the entire lower half of his body is no longer there.

  We built a smart home for Jason and his family in San Diego. When we handed over the keys to him in a ceremony, his six-year-old daughter, Stacy, asked to speak. “My daddy is Jason Ross,” she said. “When I was little, my daddy got hurt in Afghanistan. He was in the hospital for a long time. My daddy is strong and brave.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the entire crowd.

  I tried to imagine what it would be like to undergo more than 240 surgeries. In 2007, through fr
iends at the USO, I was introduced to DC-based businessman and military supporter, Bob Pence. Later that year, and again in 2009, he and I produced Lt. Dan Band concerts at the old Walter Reed in Washington, DC, to give warriors like Jason a morale boost and a little relief from the daily grind of rehabilitation. We were able to bring many patients from their rooms for some fun and music. On one of my trips to the Naval Medical Center, I raised a question with Vice Admiral Forrest Faison, at the time the commander of ten hospitals and thirty clinics from the West Coast to the Indian Ocean. I asked the vice admiral what he would think if we brought my band out to San Diego to throw a huge party for the hospital. We could get some food and provide all the patients and their families with a day of appreciation. He loved the idea.

  On October 20, 2012, my foundation produced a military appreciation day, an event that began our Invincible Spirit Festival program. Initially, we planned to get food trucks to bring the meal, but before the event I received a tweet from celebrity chef Robert Irvine. I’d seen Robert’s show on the Food Network, Restaurant: Impossible. He knew of our work supporting the troops and said if there was anything he could do to help to please let him know. I wrote him back immediately, mentioned the festival, and asked him to come cook for everybody. He wrote, “I’m in. Give me the date.” Robert brought a team of volunteers and arranged for the food to be donated. We set up a stage and barbecues. For the children of the wounded, we rented inflatable bounce houses and rock-climbing walls and brought in clowns and face painting. We created a real festival atmosphere and held a Lt. Dan Band concert. Everyone who could join us—the patients, their families, and the hospital staff—had a great time.

  Since beginning this program in 2012, more than seventy-seven thousand people have come to our festivals at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, and at Walter Reed and Fort Belvoir in the DC area. We’ve seen firsthand the importance of these festivals for the folks enduring long stays at the hospital. It’s so easy to forget people going through long-term rehabilitation. Maybe they were wounded four years ago, and they’re still in the hospital today. Or maybe they were wounded years ago and healed, but they need to return for follow-up work. The wounded troops and their family members tell me time and time again how getting out of the hospital for a day and being appreciated and loved is a tremendous encouragement to them.

  My foundation’s final program is called Relief and Resiliency Outreach. This is an umbrella program where we simply try to help veterans and their families in any way possible, including those recovering from trauma, injury, or loss.

  Within the umbrella is a mentoring program. I’ve had a long relationship with the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) and know several wounded veterans who’ve lived with their injuries for decades, so I thought of providing an opportunity to introduce some of our younger wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan to veterans from previous wars. I met with Jim Sursely, a Vietnam veteran triple amputee and a former national commander of the DAV, to gauge his interest and get his thoughts. He responded positively and said he would love to be involved and that he would discuss it with DAV leadership. I then proposed the idea to Ken Falke, founder of the Boulder Crest retreat centers, with locations in Bluemont, Virginia, and near Tucson, Arizona, and asked him to host the events. Ken was on board, the DAV was on board, and the mentoring program began. Several veterans have participated in the retreats, and it’s been a positive experience for all.

  The foundation established an emergency relief fund to help military veterans and first responders in need when times were tough. Many of these stories are so heartbreaking, and it is always tough, but it’s also a joy for me to sit down and write letters to these deserving families as we send the small donations we are able to make through the generosity of the American people who support the Gary Sinise Foundation.

  Emotional wounds need healing also. We recognize this and host uplifting events and group activities for vets and their families going through similar struggles. By building a community of strong friendships and forming joyful, lasting memories, these people can find new hope for the future together. We’ve been able to help more than eight thousand people this way.

  The simple story here is that from its creation in 2011, the foundation has grown into a friendly giant. We’ve gone from one donor—just me in the beginning—to a base of more than forty-five thousand donors and an annual budget of nearly $30 million. In our early years, a terrific board of directors formed, and along with Judy Otter, these board members played a significant role in our expansion. Our growth has been terrific, and it is my sincere hope and belief that if I fell off the earth tomorrow, something important would be left behind that would continue to help people.

  We’re getting great things done. But there’s lots more work to do, and we are always looking for more ways we can help our nation’s defenders. I like to spread this message, a motto we’ve come to live by at the foundation. That motto holds that while we can never do enough to show our gratitude to our nation’s defenders, veterans, first responders, and the families who serve alongside them, we can always do a little more.

  CHAPTER 17

  Why I’m Still on a Mission

  Each person on this planet is here for a purpose. As the years have rolled on, I’ve come to believe that purpose is to care for other people and to help this world become a better place through service to others. This belief is part of my life’s mission.

  As I’ve gotten older, I have seen more clearly the fragility of life. How love and beauty and service and action and declining health and infirmity can all mix together. I’ve seen life’s brevity too, hearing how the clock constantly ticks. I find myself getting up earlier and earlier and staying up later as time goes on, fearing that I won’t be able to get in everything I’d like to do. And when you grasp how close we all are to the realities beyond the veil, you never want to waste another day.

  In April 2014, my brother-in-law Jack Treese was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Jack had served as a medic in the army, and after Vietnam he became a physician’s assistant. His wife, Amy, started teaching elementary school after her service in the army. Jack and I had grown very close over the years, and he and Amy had moved in with us a few years before the diagnosis. A month after he found out he had cancer, we moved to a new property with a guesthouse, and he and Amy moved into that. Jack had become my right-hand man before he got cancer, and I took him to Afghanistan with me, to Iraq twice, and all over the States. When I filmed Ransom in New York, he worked as my assistant. He became more like a brother than a brother-in-law. After the cancer diagnosis, Jack began chemo and radiation treatments. Gradually, he grew weaker and weaker.

  Meanwhile, Sophie had fallen in love with a young man she’d known from their days in high school together, Bobby George, and they set their wedding for September 2014. All of us, including Jack, felt so happy for the young couple. After the ceremony at the church, we held the reception at our house. Jack was unable to attend because he was so weak from the cancer by then. From his room in our guesthouse, he could hear the festivities, and he gave us all his blessing. I know he wanted only the best for his niece. The entire day unfolded paradoxically, as we experienced both beauty and difficulty, joy and pain. Three days after the wedding, Jack passed away.

  On the west side of our backyard, I built a memorial to Jack with a flagpole and a plaque to honor his service to our country. It reads: “In memory of Jack Lawrence Treese, CW2 US Army, Vietnam. Devoted husband, loving father and papa, beloved brother-in-law and uncle.”

  Our property rests on a small hill, and not long after the memorial was finished, I stood before the plaque and flagpole. Evening approached, the rare California rains had fallen earlier that day, and the winds from the Pacific had blown the sky free of clouds. As the sun set and the sky turned to purple and gold, I looked out beyond Jack’s memorial to the horizon, and in between saw miles of tan hills and green canyons, fresh and rene
wed against the evening sky. Jack had known his purpose. He lived a life of service. In my own heart, mixed with the sorrow of his being gone, I felt immense waves of gratitude for having known him.

  Funny how the strongest emotions can be buried deep within the soul. They rise to the surface in times of pressure or intensity, in those infrequent moments of opportunity when we can draw closer to each other in service and dedication. When we understand anew the shortness of life.

  Jack’s passing reminded me of when my grandpa Dan died. He’d always been such a big, strong railroader, always working, always fixing something around the house. After retiring, he liked to golf, but one day while out walking the course, he succumbed to a stroke. A day later, when my father led me into my grandfather’s hospital room, I saw Grandpa Dan bedridden, a thin sheet covering his chest, his once-strong body dressed only in a gown. He saw us and immediately burst into tears. I knew those tears meant something he couldn’t express with words. I’d never seen my grandfather cry. He couldn’t speak very well due to the stroke, and it was tough to see him looking so frail, trying to choke out some words to us. When my father and I left the hospital, we didn’t speak much either. But as we rode back home together in silence, I knew we were both mulling the big questions of life.

  In December 2015, I finished shooting the first season of my new television series, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. It was a wonderful experience working with a tremendous cast and crew. I was feeling great going into the new year when a few months later my father succumbed to a stroke. He and my mom had been living in Idaho near my sister, Lori, but doctors thought perhaps Dad would be better off in California with its lower elevation and warmer climate. So my parents had come to live with us. I jumped headlong into this new stage of life that allowed me to interact with them more closely than we had in years.