“Nobody cares what you know, until they know you care.” — Eric W. Hommel

Episode Summary
Eric Hommel doesn’t sound like a man who spent thirty years in uniform guarding his own reputation — and that’s the point. A Cold War Navy submariner turned Air Force lieutenant colonel, he commanded a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province, where the job was to build roads, governance, and a police force the Afghans could run themselves. Instead he found himself halting a major road project because his own side was seizing farmland from 541 families without paying a cent — a violation of the very constitution Americans had helped write.

From there the conversation opens into the machinery Eric watched from the inside for a decade: metrics that reward motion over progress, contractors who profit from problems never getting solved, and senior leaders who, in his words, “knew their jobs but didn’t know the mission.” He and Jeanne trade stories about working yourself out of a job, why real warfare is generational rather than a three-day event, and the moment he realized he was “building better thugs” instead of police officers. He’s just as blunt about himself — he was in charge, and he lost, so he calls himself a loser too.

The most moving stretch is about what happens to veterans after the war. Eric walks through Immersive Prolonged Exposure — putting veterans back inside a lifelike recreation of Afghanistan — and tells the story of Army Captain Tyler Kurth, who had nightmares every night for seven years and stopped once he finally understood the “why” behind his service. Today Eric pours all of it into walking Arlington National Cemetery with veterans and families, telling the stories of the people buried there. And before he goes, he plays Two Truths & A Lie — a submarine ship’s diver, a Marine mortar gunner, and a set of cavalry gold spurs — and only one of them is made up.

Eric's Bio
Eric Hommel has lived about five careers inside one set of dog tags — Cold War Navy submariner, Air Force officer, ground combat commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, decade-long Pentagon insider, and Capitol Hill legislative liaison. He commanded a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province, where he stopped a road project cold to make sure 541 Afghan families were paid for their land. His memoir, The Losing Game, is the only first-person account of America’s failed mission in Afghanistan that ends by taking the blame himself. These days you’ll find him walking small groups through Arlington National Cemetery, telling the stories of the people buried there.

Eric's Links
Website / Publishing: https://www.lionsixpress.com/
Vigilance Tours (Arlington tours): https://www.vigilancetours.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-hommel-21315aa/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vigilance_tours_arlington/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088709956469

Eric's CTA
Visit vigilancetours.com to book a personalized tour of Arlington National Cemetery with Eric — and pick up his book, The Losing Game: How to Lose a War and Fail Veterans.

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"A man does not lose his life all at once. He loses it every time he calls the truth inconvenient and chooses the warm lie instead." — Arky Jones

Episode Summary
Arky Jones has spent most of his life doing what most people avoid — looking closely at himself and asking hard questions about why people think, react, and live the way they do. That curiosity led him to build PersonalityPeek, a platform that blends personality insights, Stoic philosophy, and practical tools to help people understand who they are and lead themselves better. In this conversation, Arky and Jeanne unpack what it actually costs to tell yourself the truth — and what it costs you when you don't.

From his teenage years packing carrots on a production line in England to a car accident at 20 that taught him the real meaning of 'life energy,' Arky's stories are concrete, funny, and quietly devastating. He talks about the years he spent absorbing everyone else's discomfort as his own — and the moment he realized he was robbing people of the chance to grow by trying to solve problems he was never asked to solve. Stoicism, he says, didn't make him cold. It made him honest.

The Two Truths and a Lie segment is one for the record books — carrot factory competitions, a military deployment that sounded like a vacation compared to being home with a toddler, and a public speaking course that turned into a pantomime stage. Stay to the end to find out which one isn't true.

Arky's Bio
Arky Jones is the creator of PersonalityPeek, a platform that combines personality psychology, Stoic philosophy, and practical self-help to help people understand how they see the world — and lead themselves better. Based in Canberra, Australia, he's the author of Applied Stoicism and has spent years developing a framework that goes beyond the personality test to answer the question everyone has after they take one: what now?

Arky's Links
Arky's Links
Website: https://personalitypeek.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Personality-Peek/61575494699915/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peekinside/?isSelfProfile=false
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPqChT1ZupoOsvS6nWjPkmw

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
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"The Cheat Code of life is finding Order in Chaos." - Lee Freeburg

Episode Summary
Lee Freeburg spent eight years as a Navy Corpsman — embedded with Marines, deployed to Iraq, trained to keep people alive in the field when there's no clinic to run to. He came home with his body intact. What followed was quieter and harder: seven years of drift. No mission. No structure. No one to tell him what to do next.

In this conversation, Lee walks through what really happens when military identity gets stripped away overnight — the freedom that felt like an open road and quickly turned into a fog. He talks about the four-wheeler accident that cracked him open at thirty-nine, the five years of rebuilding that followed, and why he eventually decided to write it all down. Not for the world — for his daughter.

Lee also walks Jeanne through Two Truths and a Lie — including the story of an EOD unit, a pinned-down SEAL team, a sniper, and one very famous name that turns out to be the twist. You will not see the ending coming.

Lee's Bio
Lee Freeburg served eight years as a Navy Corpsman, including a deployment to Iraq in support of EOD. After the military, he rebuilt his life through discipline, faith, and structure. He is the author of two books — How to Live a Better Life and The Code of a Man — and the founder of The Ordered Life, a free coaching course helping men find their footing when life feels like chaos.

Lee's Links
Website: https://theleeburg.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lee.freeburg/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lee.burg.81
Free Course (Skool): https://www.skool.com/the-ordered-life-9053/about

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