Life After the Army: Mike & Amanda Pickens on Transition, Isolation & Found Family

Life After the Army: Mike & Amanda Pickens on Transition, Isolation & Found Family

After 22 years, four deployments, and duty stations from Fort Bragg to Korea to Italy, retired Army First Sergeant and Ranger Mike Pickens and his wife, Army veteran Amanda Pickens, thought coming home to Oklahoma would be the easy part. It wasn't. In this honest, deeply relatable conversation, Mike and Amanda open up about the side of military life that rarely gets talked about: the transition out. They share what it was like to raise two kids overseas with no family nearby, why the structure and built-in community of the military is so hard to replace, and the quiet shock of returning "home" to find that friends and even family had moved on. Amanda speaks candidly about the mental-health toll of that isolation, and Mike reflects on trading a career of leading soldiers for a mission he never trained for — figuring out who you are after the uniform comes off. Then they found the Eagle Ops Foundation. What started as showing up to a golf night with zero interest in golf became something they didn't know they were missing: a positive social connection with other veterans, a "found family," and a support system built for the whole family — not just the service member. Whether you're a veteran, a military spouse, or someone who loves one, this episode is a powerful reminder that the hardest battles often come after service — and that no one has to fight them alone. 🇺🇸 Learn more about the Eagle Ops Foundation and find a Rally Point near you. Subscribe wherever you listen — Apple, Spotify, and YouTube — and we'll see you at the next Rally Point.

Hunt Therapy, Moral Injury & the Lie That Kills Veterans | Dr. Carter Check Pt. 2

Part two with Dr. Carter Check a former Army CAV scout, VA clinician, and founder of Hunt Therapy. In this episode, Dr. Check unpacks what moral injury actually is (and why it's not a weakness), why veterans who die by suicide often believe they're saving others, and how purpose becomes the most powerful weapon against shame. He shares the story behind Hunt Therapy and his book Healing in the Wild built on the idea that nature shows up even when people don't. Host Travis and Dr. Check also dig into what makes Eagle Ops different: a place where veterans don't have to be their title, just themselves. Raw, real, and worth your time.

From Iwo Jima to Williams Tower: The Story That Built Eagle Ops

Williams CEO Chad Zamrin joins Shep on the Eagle Ops Rally Point Podcast to talk veteran workforce investment, mental health stigma in construction and the military, and why supporting organizations like Eagle Ops is one of the highest-ROI decisions a business leader can make. Chad opens up about his 10 months as CEO of Williams — an $8B company forecasting 10% annual growth — and what the company's WWII legacy taught him about servant leadership, problem-solving, and community. Topics covered: * Williams' role in building the WWII War Emergency Pipelines * John Williams surviving Iwo Jima and becoming the company's longest-serving CEO * Veteran suicide rates in construction — and what companies can actually do * Eagle Ops' Freedom Shoots and the veteran whose life it turned around * How to reach 285,000 Oklahoma veterans at scale * What Chad tells other CEOs about investing in veteran nonprofits Eagle Ops Mission: Connecting relationships to resources to bring our heroes home. eagleops.org [http://eagleops.org]

Part 2 with Ryan "Bacon" Nelson: From Lost to Purpose-Driven Mission Coordinator : An Eagle Ops Story

PART TWO with Ryan "Bacon" Nelson was a Marine Corps veteran, NBC specialist, combat deployment survivor, and by his own admission.... a guy who had no business walking into a veteran organization in his mid-30s. Then a fellow Marine dragged him to a backyard fire pit in Tulsa. He broke a chiminea within the first ten minutes. And he never really left. In this conversation with Eagle Ops founder Shep, Ryan walks through his full journey from joining the Marine Corps to change himself before 9/11 flipped everything upside down, to coming home without a clear direction, to finding his purpose through a mission that asks one simple question before every decision: Will it help veterans? He talks about the stat that doesn't get enough airtime that over 6,000 veterans die by suicide every year in the U.S., more than 100 times the combat losses from 20 years of war. And why upstream community is the answer that organizations like Eagle Ops are quietly building, one Rally Point at a time. This episode is about what real service looks like, what real leadership looks like, and what happens when a guy who thought nonprofits were just PR vehicles finds out he was built for exactly this. Eagle Ops is a veteran-focused nonprofit connecting Oklahoma veterans through community, events, and shared mission. Learn more at eagleops.org [http://eagleops.org]. Free top 5 Vet resources Guide; https://resources.eagleops.org/eagle-ops--veteran-resource-guide-funnel [https://resources.eagleops.org/eagle-ops--veteran-resource-guide-funnel]

Ryan "Bacon" Nelson: From Lost to Purpose-Driven Mission Coordinator : An Eagle Ops Story

Ryan "Bacon" Nelson was a Marine Corps veteran, NBC specialist, combat deployment survivor, and by his own admission.... a guy who had no business walking into a veteran organization in his mid-30s. Then a fellow Marine dragged him to a backyard fire pit in Tulsa. He broke a chiminea within the first ten minutes. And he never really left. In this conversation with Eagle Ops founder Shep, Ryan walks through his full journey from joining the Marine Corps to change himself before 9/11 flipped everything upside down, to coming home without a clear direction, to finding his purpose through a mission that asks one simple question before every decision: Will it help veterans? He talks about the stat that doesn't get enough airtime that over 6,000 veterans die by suicide every year in the U.S., more than 100 times the combat losses from 20 years of war. And why upstream community is the answer that organizations like Eagle Ops are quietly building, one Rally Point at a time. This episode is about what real service looks like, what real leadership looks like, and what happens when a guy who thought nonprofits were just PR vehicles finds out he was built for exactly this. Eagle Ops is a veteran-focused nonprofit connecting Oklahoma veterans through community, events, and shared mission. Learn more at eagleops.org [http://eagleops.org]. Free top 5 Vet resources Guide; https://resources.eagleops.org/eagle-ops--veteran-resource-guide-funnel [https://resources.eagleops.org/eagle-ops--veteran-resource-guide-funnel]