Episode 37 Sgt Jason Steiner

0:00 M hm hm h m. What's up, guys and gal. There's another installment of Bulldog on Sensor coming to you. Today's gonna be an interesting episode.

0:50 Iget with me Sergeant Jason Steiner. Sorrys what's going on? Well? What's going on? Brother? How are you doing? Good? So we got Jason here to uh talk about is a military career, an upcoming event called the Hero Stock, So we'll get more on that momentarily. But yeah, Jason, if you can kind of give our listeners a little overview about your time in the military and how you got to that point. Sure. Yeah. I joined back in nineteen ninety six, went Marine Corps. Route Army said be all you could be, So I became a marine to serve ninety six to two thousand. While I was in, I was a amphibious assault vehicle driver from ninety six to ninety eight. We basically we had an amtrack that would float in the water, a tank that was thirty six times.

1:40 We go from ship to shore with it, take troops and troop carrier that kind of thing. Wow. The last two years I was in, I was actually I got moved up to be the battalion marksmanship instructor for third tracks out of Camp Delmar and Camp Penalty, So I trained eleven hundred Marines and Navy corman a year on rifle and stole. Um. I got married in ninety eight when I was in and decided I didn't want to raise my family bouncing around from base to base, and so I ended up getting out in two thousand and moved back to Nebraska as a temporary move, and twenty three years later we're still here. So right on, now, you know, you were kind of pre nine to eleven and all that kind of stuff.

2:27 Were you station anywhere to actually just seeing a comment or was that just kind of a protocol routine type of thing. Now, I basically saved all served, all garrison I did. We were on twenty four hours standby and early ninety eight when Iraq was kind of flaring back up. Yeah, so we were on twenty four hours standby. That's the closest I ever got to it, and I'm thankful for that every day. That's all the closer I got to it. So um, but no, that even being on twenty four hours stand by, you know that the nerves and stuff. Yeah, you don't know, you don't know when you're gonna leave, so right, always being at the ready late like that, it's it's definitely got to be stressful. And Marines are a whole different breed, like you said, you know, it's cut tire of everything we've got. So I got a big love from the Marines. My uh, my uncle was a Marine for part time or a short time in the eighties and it was discharged, but he spent some time in Okinawa, and my aunt was in the Air Force, and night two great uncles that both served in Nam. So I've got plenty of ties and pret you know, military stuff and war vets and all that kind of stuff, and also law enforcement as well. Sure, sure, definitely, you know, I enjoyed my time in but uh, you know, I guess I'm lucky that I got out when I did because I didn't have to to go over and see combat. And you know, I two

3:59 thousand and nine team. I actually I was one of the founding members of another nonprofit here in Nebraska called the Nebraska Warriors Hockey Program, and we had a lot of the combat veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq, you know, on our team, and you hear them talk, you know, to each other and stuff about some of the stuff that they saw were there and some of the stuff that they did. And it made me realize really how lucky I was to be able to serve in Garrison and not have to you know, go over and see what they saw. So but yeah, a small angelo buddies that saw action in Afghanistan and Iraq both. Yeah, and just some of the ship that I ever was just mind blowing what they had to go through. And you know, the more we learned later on in life, you know, what was actually going on and why, it definitely brings a hill of different perspective than when you start out right right one hundred percent.

5:00 We actually we had quite a bit of fallout, you know, when they did the draw out of Afghanistan. Um, we had quite a few guys that really really suffered through that. Man, they you know, they they looked at it and they're like, man, we just spent twenty years over there, you know, two, three, four or five deployments for what you know, we just handed it right back to the Taliban, and and uh, it was it was really stressful for him and and we had we we saw a lot of issues out of that you know that we dealt with post service, right and and uh, but that was that was kind of kind of how this hero Stock thing started. Was you know, seeing that need for for a night for veterans to just hang out and and uh, let them be veterans, let them, let them talk to each other and and you know, connect outside of service and outside of our nonprofits that we're all involved in, and and uh that kind of thing. So that's kind of how we got this started. And um, so twenty twenty two, i'd actually I was coming up with a way to give veterans at night out, um, release the demons for a night hang out with like minded people, um, just relax. And my original thought was to do an axe throwing contest, because we're all competitive, no matter what branch we're in, we're all super competitive. So I was like, you know, we'll do

6:30 an ax throwing contest. And the more I thought about it, you know, military and alcohol and axes, and we're going to the emergency room. Somebody's gonna get scalped. The best idea, yeah, exactly exactly. So I actually had a neighbor come down and he's like, hey, man, for this night out, he said, I got a band that wants to come in and play, and I was like, super cool, Well we'll throw some fire pits out, wrote some hot dogs, maybe girls, some burghers, and you know, hang out, drink and listen to music. And so I called the singer and got it set up October twenty second.

7:12 That was his first date. So it was basically forty five days from the idea. Two days later, my buddy comes down and he goes, hey, man, I got another band that wants to come in and play. And I said, you know what, I'm gonna do an event for veterans. And so I set up an event for veterans to be able to come in one night, hang out, play cornhole. We set a cornhole tournament and just have fun. And as the as the as we were building up to it. You know, we were only advertised on Facebook for forty five days. We had a limited number of posters that we put out. We ended up having a hundred people show up and it was one hundred percent free to him, just come out and hang out. Um. So we had the two bands going, the cornhole tournament was going, and I kind of realized at that point that you know, when I got out in ninety six.

8:13 I knew of the VFW and the Legion, which were the only two groups out there for military that I knew about. The VFW I couldn't join because I had never fought in a foreign war. And the Legion, you know, it was usually just a bunch of old, grumpy guys sitting at the bar, which that wasn't my cup of team, you know. So I pushed back from everything in the military until twenty nineteen when we started the Warrior's Hockey Program. And with this, as we were building this, I started seeing all these different nonprofits out there that I hadn't even heard of.

8:54 And I'd been in the nonprofit world for four years, and you know, this is a great way to showcase these nonprofits, to let everybody know what we have, what's available. And so I grabbed the heads of all the nonprofits and I said, get up in front of the stage, grabbed the mic, and give a two minute elevator speech, who you are, what you do, and how to get a hold of you. And we ended up actually having people join some of these nonprofits because of the event last year, you know, and I thought that was pretty cool, because you know, you're you're opening it up these nonprofits that some of them struggle to get people to join because people don't know about it, right, So we actually we helped some of these nonprofits get some members and that kind of thing, and which in turn helps with their mission. So that was kind of cool, and that was that was a neat part of it, but it was.

9:50 It was supposed to be a one night deal. That's all I'd ever planned it to be. We had at three to five days after the event, my phone started going crazy and I'm I'm getting text calls, emails going, man, you have to do this again. And so I grabbed a couple of people and we formed a board and formed hero Stock and decided this year, instead of just making it a veteran event, We're open it up to all the nation's heroes, you know, our first responders and and our gold Star families. And that has gotten amazing reviews that we did that, you know, and make it more of an inclusive group, you know, with everybody that's a hero. Yeah, I mean, anything to network on all sides of that, you just create a bigger umbrella of camaraderie and connection, and you know, it makes complete sense to do that kind of thing most definitely. Yeah, And you know, there's a ton of crossover, you know when you when you start looking at law enforcement and firefighters and ms, there's a ton of veterans yeah, that are both, you know, and so it made sense to do that. And so we've we've now opened it up this year to all of our first responders, our gold star families obviously because they gave a loved one, you know, for the war or for our military, so it made sense to include them into it too.

11:24 But yeah, man, it's it's uh, it's growing fast. And you know, we had one hundred last year that showed up were I'm saying between fifteen hundred and two thousand people, one of my board members of saying between twenty five hundred and three thousand is what he thinks would be coming in this year. Um. Right now, I know of people from eight or nine different states that are actually talking about coming into the event. And some of them are just coming in to be at the event. They're not setting up a table, they're not anything. They just want to come in and see this event. Um. You know, that's that's pretty cool on on my side of it, to be able to see, you know, the people are wanting to come in to see something like this and see it grow and and get bigger every year. So absolutely, you know, any chance to get everybody connected like that and reaching out and kind of leaning on each other for support. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. And I think it's awesome what you're trying to do. Yeah, and you know, and my thing is is I wanted these nonprofits to come in and I want it to grow every year to where you know, we're showcasing one hundred different nonprofits instead of just twelve, you know, and let people understand that, you know, the VFW doesn't fit or or the Wounded Warriors Project doesn't fit you know, the big national change, they don't fit for you. Guess what, We've got this really small local nonprofit that does motorcycles or you know, they have equine therapy or you know something like that that you know, it's it's

12:56 kind of picked your flavor because there's so many different nonprofits out there for veterans right now, and you know, there's not a ton for first responders, but there are a few, you know, and and to be able to expose those to everybody and say hey, look, this is this is what we have for you. Um, I think is a great thing. And then you know, the networking one on one, you know, find your finding your civilian battle buddy, finding that person that you can lean on, that you can talk to that's been there, that's done that they've seen the same shit you have and and can can understand you and where you're coming from. You know, I think that's a huge thing too. So that's a big portion of what we're doing this year with with hero Stock is to to have that that crossover, to be able to grab that person and say, hey man, I'm having a rough day and and that person's there to listen and help and do what they can. Right, So he's good. Bands lined up, hundreds of you know, idealy nonprofit organizations connecting with each other cornhole that kind of thing. Give me kind of like an overview of what's going to go on a side from speeches and that kind of thing, and what you're designated venue is going to be. So this year's going to be kind of a wild ride because we actually have a couple of veteran nonprofits that are working with US. Wheels for Warriors works with a younger gall called her

14:30 name's Randa. They do Randa's Ride. It's a thousand mile iron butt. They'll leave Friday evening at eight pm from Lincoln, Nebraska. They'll ride down to Moreyer, Oklahoma to Adam Sandebal's k River Campground. That's where the staging area is for anybody in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas. They're all going to meet up there and then ride back up to hero Stock. They're scheduled to land around two o'clock PM on Saturday, so they're actually kicking us off Friday night Saturday morning. Scott Fredenberg with Rocket Up for Warriors, which is a local nonprofit ruck group there, he set up a ruck march that's gonna be around four to six miles. They're gonna be rucking with their packs and their flags. They'll be landing around two o'clock also at hero Stock, a reverent Warriors. They have a national chapter or their national chapter, but we have one here in Nebraska. They're going to be doing a silkie hike coming into hero Stock, and then there's a chance that Nebraska Warriors will also be doing a round robin tournament with Kansas City Warriors and the Oklahoma City Warriors and they're all going to come out to hero Stock. So it's going to kick off about two o'clock for our event. The other events are going to kick off Friday night or Saturday, So two o'clock the Cornhole tournament will kick off. We're guests and we're going to have thirty to forty teams.

16:07 It's one hundred percent free to play on the Cornhole tournament. Top three to five teams will get prizes, and I'm going to kind of do a gag gift type prize for the first team that gets knocked out because to make fun of people. So we've got a group called the Bravo Zulu Group out of Omaha. They're going to be doing a penning weather. They'll be doing a parachute coming in possibly with an American flag at the time of the anthem at three thirty. So my daughter's going to kick off the singing. She's going to do the anthem and Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA and then possibly one more song and then guitars for veterans going to take the stage, which is they have a national chapter also, but we have a local chapter here in Omaha where they teach veterans how to play guitars. So it's a it's a really cool program. It's a ten week program, start off with a very basics and by the end of it you'll be playing one song and then they give you a guitar at the end of it. So we want to showcase them and put them on stage and let them kind of show off what they do. The next band up is a blue collar band out of North Platte, Nebraska. They're seventies eighties. They do a lot of cover stuff, they have some of their own stuff. Kind of a cool little band.

17:30 The next one up is Scottie Hastings and Scottie Hastings is a combat wounded veteran from Afghanistan. Ended up taking ten bullets from his left eye to his right shoulder and ended up going to Walter Reed to recover. While he was there, he picked up a bow and started shooting archery and ended up on the competitive archery team for the military. And whilst he got discharged, he you know of it hit They shut down everything, So he grabbed a guitar, taught himself how to play through you tube, and started hitting the outskirts of Nashville doing open mic nights and he now just signed to a label, a Nashville label, So pretty cool to bring him in being a combat veteran, you know, wounded veteran, to be able to come in and show what he's doing now. And then our final band is going to be the Dylan Bloom Band, which is he's based out of Grand Island and he's very energetic, grabs a hole of the crowd, does a lot of his own songs, but also does a lot of cover songs too, you know, bringing in his whole band with him, and he's going to close down her bands for the night. So yeah, I mean it's gonna be it's gonna be a wild, unpacked you know, couple nights actually with the motorcycle starting on Friday night for us. And yeah, this is going to be the end of August beginning of September yep, yep, and it will be held

19:03 out around the Bench Steakhouse, which is a local steakhouse here in Ashland, Nebraska. UM, we have ten thousand square foot inside and ten thousand square foot outside that we can work with. UM. We paired with a local media marketing company called unanimous that they've helped us out of ton doing. You know, they redid our logo and I mean this was our logo last year. Literally it was my face aviators. Um, that was that was our logo last year. We took it into them and they're like, you want to refine this a little bit, like come on, I mean this is beautiful. What are we talking about? This should yeah? Right? Um, So you know, I mean they came in and helped us out.

19:49 They did a deal for our tiered sponsorships and and a donor letter and redid our logo and um, they've just done a lot of social media type stuff for us because I'm like, I don't know algorithms, right, I don't I don't know Facebook that well, then when I'm supposed to post and how I'm supposed to post. And so they helped us out with that great group, amazing group to work with. Um. We also paired with Soldier Valley Spirits, which is a local veteran own distillery out of Omaha. Um, they're going to be bringing in their semi trailer and selling their spirits out of the semi trailer and some of their swagging stuff. So that was really cool to be able to pair with them to being a veteran owned owned group, you know. And and then we just got another sponsor. He actually works.

20:42 He's one of the board members for Duce Outfitters Ministry, which is one of the groups that originally came in last year and they do hunt and fishing trips and that kind of thing for veterans, and so his company's going to be one of our main sponsors too. And he does like potash seedlings, potato seedlings or something like that. So we're still working with him on his deal. But but yeah, man, it's like this thing has just exploded and and you know, it was supposed to be a one night deal. It was never supposed to happen again, and and just a one off deal. And now we've got people coming in from eight or nine different states to see what we're doing. And so it's it's been pretty cool to watch the growth of it too. No, absolutely, I mean, you know, anybody that puts these kinds of events together just planting the seed in the infancy of it all, and you never know which direction it's going to take and how big it's going to get when you first start. And then you're blinking.

21:45 It's like you said, Yeah, United States involved and all kinds of stuff. So ye, props to you guys for you know, sticking your nose to the grindstone and keep pushing through to make it happen. Yeah. I mean it's a ton of work, man, it really is. Like I I own a tile business too, I do tile installs and that stuff, and I've probably spent as much time on this as I do actually install and tile, so um, you know. But it's been a lot of fun too, like like getting to see the growth of it and getting to talk to some of these guys that are up and coming stars and and that kind of thing that you know, and and learning about the veteran singers that I didn't know about, you know, and this has really opened my eyes to that, and you know, reaching out. They're getting reached out to by groups like lock Jaw, you know, they're a heavy metal band out of Texas, and he wanted to come in and play this year, and I was like, dude, we have no more spots, Like we're maxed out. We can't. So he's talking about bringing in heavy metal bands for next year and doing a two day event next year and one day be in all country and the next day being all heavy metal. Um, you know, and really really seeing this thing grow and man, you know, make we're we have even pulled off this year yet, so next year maybe a three day event. We don't know, right right, No, it's fantastic.

23:07 I mean I'm big into country and heavy metal, and you know that's where I got my start, was in the heavy metal business up here in New England, and so you know, I'd love to be able to come down there at some point with the next couple of years and hang out and take the whole thing out. It seems like it's gonna be an insane man, I'm telling you. The way it's growing, it's we're bringing people in from all over the place. And the guy that in Texas, he was like, you know, my friends are like five Finger, Death Punch and Breaking Benjamin, and I'm like, holy buckets, if we can start throwing those kind of guys on and you're talking about something different, right, Oh yeah, that's that's a whole whole different world when you start talking about those kind of names going up on stage. So you know, I was like, cool, man, I'd love to have him involved and get his contacts involved. Um, you know, I had to had the question poised to me on another podcast. I did and through the contagion effect, and Mike was like, he goes, man, he goes, are you ever thinking about, you know, taking this outside of Nebraska right? And you know, and I'm thinking, I've still got a full time job. I'm like, I don't have time to go research venues and trying to set stuff up, you know, in another state and that kind of stuff, and and about It was probably two or three weeks later. I talked to a guy out of Michigan or a gunner resurgeon out of Michigan on marine and he does hunting and fishing and camping and survival and that kind of stuff, and he

24:38 takes veterans on and he's like, man, He's like, I'm I'm on Lake Michigan and our legion literally sits on the edge of Lake Michigan. He goes, would you be interested in coming up here and doing like a pre hero Stock party? And I'm like, I don't know, man, you know the time thing, and he goes, here's the deal. He starts sending me pictures like of the sunset you know, Overlake Michigan, and I'm like, dude, you're killing me here there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, having a band set up right there and that's in the backdrop, and I'm like, oh wow. So I'm actually going up in June, either June or July, and I'm going to go on a fishing trip with Gunny and uh then we're gonna go around the town and kind of check things out the next day and see what we can put together and possibly do a pre hero Stock party next year up on Lake Michigan. Nice. And once I started talking about that, one of the guys out in Nashville, he's like, Hey, I got a place down here. You can come down here and do one down here. And California and Florida and Texas and I'm like, oh here we go catches like wow, fire bro right right, you know, And so we ban end up making this into a concert series.

25:56 I have no idea, you know, I don't know which trick of thing's going to go, but it's it's literally growing by the week. Um. You know from my podcast that I did back but two months ago, it has completely changed from that original podcast. Yeah, and you know, even the podcast that I did two weeks ago, it's changed again because we've got people coming in. Um, there's a group coming in out of Denver, the Veteran Rescue Ranch. Um, he sent me his information. He's like, man, I want to be part of this. So he's bringing in his stuff and setting up a booth here at hero Stock in Nebraska to talk about what he's doing out in Denver. Right, Um, you know.

26:40 So, I mean it's it's literally by the week it's changing and it's growing and more groups are getting involved and wanting to be involved with it, and so it's really kind of a cool deal to to be the founder of it, to see the growth of it, you know, and it's like you're kid. You get to see your kid go from I'm sorry later you know, we're starting to crawl and you know next next year it might be a walk and then we start to run in the sprints, right right, But but yeah, man, it's it's it's fun. It's it's been a wild ride so far and we're just at the very tip of it. So yeah, no, it's it's fascinating to see how quickly these things progress when you interigate you know, civilian and military and first founder altogether, gonna get everybody on the same page and helping each other out. And I think in general this country needs a lot more of that anyhow. So it's a good example to be said. And I plugged you for all the success coming your way, and and uh, whatever you got coming down the pipeline. Absolutely, and Bulldog and Sensor's proud to represent hero Stuck as well and advertise for good guys up in your here in New England, and uh, you know, whatever we can do to spread the word, We're gonna do that. Well,

28:11 man, I really appreciate it. That's that's what it takes is people talking about it, right, get getting that out there and letting people know what we got going. And hopefully we can come up to New England and put on a show up there with you guys. Oh absolutely, you know I've I've done several different events of different skills up this way, So I'd love to do something like that for sure. That'd be awesome. That that would that would be amazing man, to hook up with you and be able to work together on something. And yeah, you know, see if we can't do something and I've never been to do something like that, and uh, work with you hand in hand and make something cool happen up there.

28:53 So I'd be honored to be a lot of fun. Yeah, we definitely will definitely stay in touch on that and see what we can't pull off. And I guess maybe i'd better see how this year it goes first before we start getting crazy. Well yeah, I mean like likewise, but I mean we're going up on over a year doing this thing, and typically I'm out, you know, playing gage myself and doing a guitar thing. But the music kind of slowed down on my end for a little bit, so you know, I gotta be diversified and you know, stretch my brain out a little bit. And so I'm doing this for a while and see what happens. Well, the podcast thing, man, right now, it's hot. Yeah, it's really lot, and you get get your listeners behind you, man, and it could blow up and be something really cool for you too and and be a real big thing too. So yeah, that's what I'm hoping, man. A week by weekend, I don't know what's going to come down the pipeline. But before we wrap up here with Jason Steiner, today's episode is brought to you by Ramo remodeling, boiling guitars, wood each barbershop, and four Engines apparel. Jason, thanks for coming out. Um, you know, I keep us posted on what's going on with herold Stock.

30:03 I'll be sure to be posting flyers and all that on my website and Facebook pages, et cetera. And yeah, maybe next time we'll we'll get you up here talking hunting, fishing and who knows what cool man. That sounds like a plan. I appreciate you and uh what you're doing, and uh, good luck with the podcast and I'll be listening all right. Really appreciate the support and I'll be in touch, all right. Sounds great, man,