Today, we dive into the captivating world of Colonel Kenny Dupar, a retired soldier-turned-storyteller who believes humor is a vital survival tool. With a background that spans the gritty realities of war in Iraq to navigating the complexities of life during Covid, Kenny Dupar intertwines laughter with profound lessons. His novels reflect a unique blend of creativity and authenticity, while his YouTube channel offers quirky wisdom that keeps his audience engaged. In this episode, we explore Kenny's journey filled with laughter, leadership insights, and even a wild night in a combat zone. So, buckle up and join us for a fun ride as we uncover how humor can help us navigate life’s toughest challenges!

Colonel Kenny Dupar's journey is a fascinating tapestry of military experience, storytelling, and humor. His unique perspective on life, shaped by his time in the Army and the construction industry, brings a fresh angle to the often heavy topics of war and trauma. Kenny opens up about the wisdom he garnered from his grandfather, emphasizing the importance of being multifaceted in life, whether it's providing for a family or showing up for friends in need. He believes that humor is a vital survival tool, a sentiment he shares through anecdotes from his life and his experiences during the war in Iraq. One memorable story revolves around how he coped with the stress of combat by infusing light-heartedness into dire situations, using humor not only to lighten the mood but also to foster camaraderie among his fellow soldiers amid chaos. Throughout the podcast, he reflects on the power of storytelling to navigate the complexities of human experiences, especially during tough times like the Covid pandemic. His approach isn't just about surviving; it's about thriving through laughter and creativity, which he channels into his novels and his engaging YouTube channel.

Takeaways:

• Colonel Kenny Dupar emphasizes the importance of humor as a survival tool in navigating life's toughest moments, including experiences from combat zones and the pandemic.
• He shares that the best advice he received from his grandfather was to be fiercely independent and capable in all aspects of life, whether at work or home.
• Kenny's storytelling blends gritty realism with creativity, drawing from his life experiences in the military and construction, leading to insightful and often humorous narratives.
• He discusses how the pandemic impacted relationships and livelihoods, highlighting the importance of connection even amidst social isolation and uncertainty.

Links referenced in this episode:

• kennydupar.com
• youtube.com

I am your host, Keith Haney. Today we have a fascinating guest, Colonel Kenny DePar.

Kenny is a retired soldier, a construction veteran, a storyteller who uses humor to navigate the toughest topics, from war in Iraq to Covid's impact on love and life. He's written novels that mix grit with creativity.

He runs a YouTube channel full of quirky wisdom and is currently working on a cosmic tale set thousands of years ago.

Kenny believes humor is a survival tool, and today we'll dig into his journey with a few laughs, his leadership lessons, and maybe even pop a night in the combat zone. So buckle up. This is going to be a fun ride. Kenny, welcome to the podcast.

Great to be here. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Well, good. I'm looking forward to this. I love to laugh and I'm sure you're going to entertain me. So this will be a fun time. Time we're going to have together.

Excellent.

So I'm going to ask you my favorite question. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

It came from my maternal grandfather, Stanley. His example was basically a man's got to be able to do everything. In other words, you got to make a living.

You got to be able to come home, make dinner, take the kids fishing, fix the house, make sure mama's happy. You got to be able to do everything you put your hands to. And you, you're always working, you're always. You're always providing.

You're always showing up. You have to have your presence and you don't shirk your responsibility.

And just looking at how that man, you know, lived his life, it was as close as I ever got to having a mentor.

Wow, that's cool. I like that.

So fiercely independent. Fiercely independent. You gotta be able to do it.

You know, you can trust family, you can ask for help, but you better have exhausted everything else before, you know, before you.

Yeah, you go down there, before you

get to that point. Right, yeah.

So give us the reader's digest version of Kenny.

Yeah, that is really a hard question because typically you want to launch into your bio, you know, so. Oh, I worked. I was in the army for 30 years and I did this. I was a carpenter and I did this kind of work and that type of thing.

And is that really what makes you. I mean, yeah, you get your habits from the work that you do, and certainly working construction, that gives you, you know, different life lessons.

You work with men predominantly, you know, but is that really who I am? I mean, it shapes you. But I would say Perfect attendance.

One thing I'm proud of is that I'm going to show up, I'm going to do what I say that I'm going to do. I pride myself in following up and trying not to over promise.

And in my spiritual life, I think that faithfulness has been something that I've just kind of over time, just relied upon so much that God's looking out for me. And he winks at you every once in a while. Did you know that, Keith, Right?

He winks at you.

Well, yeah. All of a sudden, you know, something will happen, right? And I don't believe too much in, you know, coincidences, right?

But people will say, well, that was like a God thing, you know, and it's like, probably it could be, you know, it's like winking at you, say, hey, I'm here, I'm doing stuff, I'm doing stuff. Okay? You may not realize it right now. So, so the, the, and I think that God keeps me around because I, I, I keep God amused to a certain degree.

You know, I recognize that I can't, I can't even make a, I can barely make a shoe smell. And I'm trying to, you know, cutting it in this life is hard, but it's the, the optimism. I read the back of the book, Keith, guess what? We win.

There you go. We win, right? I love that.

And then, you know, and both my fiance and myself were problem solvers. So if we're thinking about something, how do we approach something? We're going to analyze it to death.

I love that. I'm curious, as you think about your different career, each of them, I'm sure, gave you a little bit of something that shaped who you are.

Which of those careers do you think you gained the most from?

I think that they were complimentary. For example, it's like showing up, you know, like showing up being a presence in people's lives.

In both, in both occupations, both soldiering and construction. If you don't show up, right? Well, in construction it's like, well, just don't come back tomorrow.

You are, obviously you didn't want the work, you know, Right. So see ya, you know, and then soldiering people will come and find you if you're not where you're supposed to be.

So you gotta do what you're, you have to do what you're supposed to.

I think that being a federal employee is great because you can't really get fired, you know, Whereas in construction, it was like, that was the end of the job. Sorry, no more work I've been laid off, like, two days before Thanksgiving type of thing.

Wow.

Feast or famine? Sometimes I'm glad I'm not doing anymore. I'm retired. Retired. I do what I want.

Yeah. That being laid up for Thanksgiving is not a fun time. So you often say humor helps you survive trauma.

Give me an example of how you use humor to save the day.

Thanks for.

Right.

But the politics at the time is that there was about 20 guys trying to get into the St. Francis Seminary, and they rejected everybody. And they said, we're going to up our standards and stuff. But it absolutely devastated me.

I grew up Catholic, and then it was the message of the harvest is great, but the workers are few. And so when I was rejected, it was like, I actually got a letter from Jesus saying, you're no good. I don't want you.

What made you think that you could follow me? Don't call me. I'm not calling you. And it took me a couple days to realize that I hadn't been rejected by God. I had been rejected by men.

And they never fought. The Catholic Church never followed up with me. They never called me and said, hey, you know, we know we broke your heart.

And so I was at my lowest ebb. I've already experienced the worst day of my life. What's the funny thing about that? Celibacy was off the table.

That was the only thing I could figure out that was like, okay, so I didn't know how I was going to handle that as a. As a priest. I was a newly minted second lieutenant. I graduated from Wisconsin.

I'm like, I gotta be good enough to, you know, I want to do this seminary. All that knowledge, it's like, oh, I want this knowledge and everything like that.

But ball is a different direction now, you know, so maybe I'll have a family. I didn't know how I was going to handle it. But, hey, you know, with that heartbreak, it was like, well, maybe another door is opened, right? And.

And then, you know, trying to find a girlfriend. I don't know about you, but I'm not. How do you find a girlfriend? I don't know. That's not the easiest thing in the world to do.

Although I have developed some ideas about it.

You write a book about it yet?

Well, I wrote Pin Up Dolls and Classic Cars, a Covid love story on my YouTube channel. I've been giving dating advice. The first piece of advice I gave to young men is to lotion your feet.

It just sounds weird, but do you know that women cannot stand nasty feet? Did you know that? It's true.

Probably.

And you got to start with the basics, with the young guys. Every time before you put your socks on, you lotion your feet. And your feet won't be nasty.

They're not going to stink, because one day there's going to be the big reveal, and she's going to see you without socks on. And if you have nasty feet. Oh, no, that's not good. You can also tell a lot about a woman by her feet, too.

What can you tell?

Well, I give some dating advice. I don't know if that's a bridge.

Yeah, probably so. So tell us about the book. A little more about the book. I like that. The title. Covid love story. Gearheads and pinup dolls.

Yeah. So I had already written Scoundrels in Iraq and Engineers Adventures. I figured out the war in Iraq and to my satisfaction.

And so I was looking to continue to write, and I was going to car shows. I. I don't know. Are you a gearhead?

No. I know I drive a car, but I don't try to fix them.

Yeah, but if you've ever gone to car shows, they would have pinup chapters. I was living in Seattle land, the Pacific Northwest, and I saw ladies all dolled up. And I instantly. It just. I had.

I had that eureka moment where it's like, I've got all my characters right here. I got gearheads and I've got pinup dolls, and they have a symbiotic relationship in that. What do the gearheads want?

Well, they're competing for best in show for recognition, the camaraderie of it. But they want the picture of their baby. What's better than having a beautiful woman model in front of the car that you've restored? Right.

And at the same time, the pinups, they want pictures of themselves in front of a muscle car. And so that set the stage. I got about two thirds of the way into the book when Covid happened, and so about.

In Iowa churches? Yeah, we had a mixture of things because one of the things that happened was they wanted. Of course, you have smaller gatherings.

So in small towns, that's all we are, small gatherings. So if you had a smaller church, you could social distance by just kind of skipping pews for people to sit on.

So some of the smaller communities didn't shut down. It was really more of the bigger cities, like the Des Moines area, the surrounding parts of that Waterloo, that really.

They had a harder crackdown than some of the places in rural Iowa. And then if it was nice, a lot of times they went outside and they had services outside. So a lot of people weren't as impacted with that as others.

So.

Yeah, in the Pacific Northwest, the politicians seem to relish closing the churches. And then when we finally. And I want to. I'm an in person guy, I'm not online guy, but we would be wearing masks. Right. And be singing songs.

Oh, the choir songs are just fantastic. What do you mean? The choir sounds fantastic. What's going on? Is this like. Yeah. With the social distancing and everything. It was just ridiculousness.

Yeah.

It was hard to preach like that too. I almost passed out once.

Because you had a mask on while you were dying?

No, I did, but I know some people wanted you to. It's like, you can't preach with a mask on because you'll pass out.

Yeah. Well, we learned some things from it. But I inadvertently was writing. I was continuing to try to work on my craft, if you would.

And how Covid impacted the characters was interesting. And you start to. What is the most important thing all of a sudden? Livelihoods go away, relationships get impacted. People are socially isolated.

People with compromised immune systems have to, you know, quarantine themselves. There was all kinds of misinformation. Misinformation, disinformation.

This came out at this time, and it went on and they shut down the schools and how it impacted families. But the book wasn't about that. It was just like the setting. But it gave a good opportunity within the context of a love story.

Two young people trying to get together. I mean, how is it that after a hundred years, a man could not take a date to dinner and a movie that shut down the movie that shut down the theaters?

Right, exactly right.

You go into a restaurant, you have to wear a mask, to be seated, and then magically, a bubble goes around your table, and then you can take your mask off, you know, and now you can eat, and it is perfectly fine. So you just knew that there was all kinds of stupidity going on.

So how did you write about the tragedy and still inject humor in the middle of all. Of all the things that were going on during that time?

You have to. As a writer, what I want to do is I want to. I want to tear out the. I want to tear out your guts. Right. I want to take the reader and just tear.

Just decimate you emotionally. If I can make myself cry while I'm composing, I know that's good. But in order to. It's like a roller coaster, right.

You got highs and lows, and so if you just stayed in the basement. I'm depressed. This is terrible. You know, you.

If you climb back up, I mean, how can your hope be dashed unless, you know, you've actually built the hope back up? And people are silly. People do dumb things all the time. And so it's not hard to, like, you know, point it out.

I mean, how many times, Keith, did you go to the grocery store? Or you go to the stop and go. You go to Casey's, right? And you get all the way to the door, and you're like, I don't have my mask.

And you got to go back to your car. You're having a. Heck, you're having a terrible day. And the frustration, you know, Or.

Or you see people by themselves in their car, driving with a mask. You see people. You see people jogging alongside the street with a mask. It's sad. Yeah.

You know, but at the same time, you have a relative in a nursing home, and you're waving a grandma through. Through glass. It's like, wow. I mean, you've. I think it's just a coping mechanism that I learned as a kid. Right. You know?

Yeah. We always say either you laugh or you'll cry.

Right.

So. Yeah.

Yeah. You gotta laugh to keep from crying.

Right.

Sometimes. So as.

As a writer, how do you use your storytelling ability to. You talked a little bit about, you know, ripping people's hearts out. Share with us kind of.

As a writer, how do you use your storytelling ability to build bridges to people that may not. May have been on even both sides of that Covid thing? How do you make sure you connect those two with your storytelling?

It's a complex question. I don't think that you. I don't think I set that out as a Goal. In other words, I'm not.

And as things continue to escalate, as a writer, I'm presenting factual information, okay? So that's part of it. You know, you can't build bridges if you would, if you're gaslighting people, you know, that misinformation type of thing.

So part of it is just storytelling, but being truthful about it, you know, sticking to the basic facts. Okay, so then people couldn't visit their relatives in nursing homes. People died alone, okay? It happened.

So if I put a mirror up in front of someone and say, okay, this is what it looked like, okay, what are we going to conclude? Well, it could never happen again. Or what was the response of leadership, of government to it? Well, they shut down schools for a year.

We were the only country in the world that did that, you know, and what's the impact? And so, yeah, it gets heavy really quick. But I'm not.

I don't have necessarily a call to action in that regard, but I paint enough of a picture where it's like, wow, people's lives can get ripped apart very easily. Destruction is easy.

You know, as someone who's been involved in construction and also destruction, in terms of telling your story down and telling again, kind of walk us through. What is it like? What was some of the hardest bridges you had to build in your life?

Oh, yeah. Thanks for giving some questions beforehand, because I was able to think about this. The hardest one I ever built was the one that I didn't build.

Do you you know what parental alienation is?

No, I haven't heard of that.

It's basically where one parent will try to alienate the other parent by saying, you know, the other parent is the bad guy.

Right. Dad's.

No, but the thing is, is that if you repeat that to a child who are. Who are sponges at first, right? You can. If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes a fundamental truth.

And so when I went through my divorce, which was. It was like. It was like World War iii and I lost, right?

So I didn't have communication with my daughter who was graduating college or graduating high school. Rather, I used my GI Bill so that she could go to UW Milwaukee, and. But she didn't want to talk to me. You know, I was the bad guy.

But I Tried to keep the communication open. You know, I would. I would send her a text every once in a while. I would send her a gift, you know, on her on birthday and Christmas.

She didn't want to talk to me for a long time. And people would say, well, she'll come back, hopefully, cross your fingers.

But what I did not do is disparage her mother because she had a relationship with her, so I didn't make things worse. And that could be bridge building. You know, you don't have to. Oh, pardon me. You don't have to. You know, it. If you think about.

I was in the corps of engineers, so with. When you talk about physically building a bridge, right, you have to have solid footing on both sides.

Right.

You know, and you're probably going to build from both sides towards the middle, but you're not going to make it worse for yourself, you know, So I guess the patience, you know, the example that you can set, being open to communication and that in this regard. And eventually she came back and lo and behold, she's, you know, a Christian now. And for a while I thought she was going to.

Turning into a godless atheist, but. Or godless communist, something like that. But she flipped. But she, but she. But she turned on a dime and now. And now we're doing good, you know.

Yeah. The bridge you didn't build. I like that.

Well, it's like. God's always working on your behalf, right. Why people don't want.

Why people don't want blessings is beyond me, but they don't know to ask or what have you. So sometimes you have to just let it be and just do a few little things, see that you're still in the game and wait for that opportunity. I guess.

It's tough.

It is tough.

Yeah.

So what's next for you? What are you working on that you're excited about?

I am. Oh, boy. Now we're going into the. Ooh, you know, what am I working on now?

Well, I'm about a third of the way through my next novel, and it's weird, Keith. It is absolutely weird because after my experience with the seminary, like I said, they rejected everybody.

And so when I was doing a comprehensive, you know, it took me two years to read the Bible. And, you know, I'm right now I'm In Acts before that, I was. I was going through Isaiah.

And so I bounced back and forth, and I was amazed by what I knew, and I was amazed by what I didn't know. And so the Catholics are very good at teaching the Bible. You know, you got hymns, which are psalms, you have some Old Testament, New Testament.

And they. And they mix it up pretty good for the most part. But I became a. A free agent, like in baseball, right. You know, I. I got. I got traded from my team.

You know, all of a sudden it was like I thought I was playing with. I was playing for the Catholics. Next thing you know, I got thrown out of the house. I was done, you know, so that just. That. Just devastated.

So I'm like, whatever flavor of Christianity. You're Lutherans, right?

Right.

And so that's a, you know, whatever flavor of Christianity. But when I was reading it, you get to chapter six of Genesis. Genesis is a really weird. Well, I shouldn't say weird.

It's a very simplified account of what has occurred.

I like to say that if God were to try to explain to me how he created the universe, he would say, okay, Kenny, get out your box of crayons, and then draw me the sun. And I draw the sun, you know, with the ray, and then draw the earth a little blue marble. Okay? So that's how he would explain it to me.

Right.

Okay. God speaks to us in ways we can understand.

But when I get to chapter six of Genesis, before the Flood, it talks about the Nephilim and things like this, which is not your typical pastor type stuff for the regular congregation, because people will be, you know, like to light their hair on fire. But I see. But I see this thread going through the Bible where it's like, who is this devil person? Is an active agent. He's doing stuff. Right.

Not only is the entire Bible like a love letter from God, but the controversy is between Jesus and the devil. And it keeps on coming and appearing again and again and again. So as I just got deeper within my own theology, so so to speak, my study of.

It's like, well, there was, you know, you go to Ezekiel. Was it chapter 28? He was talking about the Prince of. Of Tyre, Lucifer and the whole thing. And it's like, when did this happen? Right. When did.

I'm a kid when. And you've heard the word Catabol, right? The overthrow, right. What was that? When did that happen? And so there's. The universe is rife with life.

Very, very spaced out or great distances. I grew up as a Star Trek guy. Are you a Star Trek or are you a Star wars guy?

I love balls. But I grew up more with Star Trek and Star wars was. I know both, so.

Yeah, right, right. So my whole life I just loved all of that weird paranormal stuff. I've never seen a ghost, you know, I've never seen a ufo. I would.

I don't know if I want to, but I mean, my heart condition, they probably, you know, take me out or something like that. But still it's like, who's this? So, so who is this devil? Right? And then you have the, the flood and the influence of, of Satan within the world.

And he, he tempted Jesus. What did he tempt Jesus with? Tempted him with? Scripture. Right before Jesus was born, was a king.

Herod had every Hebrew child, male child, under the years of four years old was killed. Right. The devil has been trying to ruin God's plan of salvation from the get go. And he's still an active agent right now. I ain't gonna mess with him.

I'm not messing with him. Okay. He kicked. He kicked my fanny. I'm not new. I'm not doing that. But it's like, I wonder. So when did. When did all this happen? How did it happen?

You know, in Job. The devil's. Where you been? Lucifer? All. I've been walking around the earth to and fro. Oh, nice.

And there's Job if you mess with him for a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

Right. So I think that the archaeological record is largely wrong. I think that human beings have been creating civilizations for a long period of time.

And if you match it with the geologic record, there's a thing called the Younger Dryas. The last glacial episode ended about 15,000 years ago. And about 12,000 years ago, the polar ice cap was struck by comets.

It's a catastrophist idea that's out there. And ocean levels rose by 400ft. So. This is going to sound weird, Keith, but I have like this. I have an Etch a Sketch theory.

So if the creator being has got an Etch A Sketch, right? And God has said, I've shook. I've shook it before and I'll do it again. Right? I did. Okay. I did it once, I'll do it again.

You're messing up, I'm telling you. Oh. And so. So he's gonna shake it again. But I read the back of the book and we win. Touchdown. Right?

That's right.

So we're gonna be okay. It's not going to be fun.

No.

But, but it, but it interests me. So, okay, I'm going to write a book. I'm going to start it off about 20,000 years ago and develop it from there.

Wow, cool. I'm looking forward to it. What's got a name for it yet or you're still working on your head?

It's called Generations Curl before the Catabol. Okay, so it's a theological fantasy. A little. Like I said, I'm retired. I'll do what I want. And if my brain is like, Kenny, I want you to think. Right.

Think about this. It's like, wow, wasn't that an episode of Star Trek? Yeah, but it was real. Oh, okay.

There you go.

So I'm entertaining myself and just, you

know, so when the quibbles show up on the planet.

Could be.

Yeah, I got.

Yeah, I got a question for you.

Sure.

Okay.

As far as the bridge building thing is concerned, in your intro for your podcast, you talk about racial reconciliation, justice reform, and education innovation, right? Well, I'm not one to shy away from the tough stuff, so. Which one do you want to pick on? I mean, how do you, how do you make these bridges?

You know, you got to build. Have an abutment on both sides. You got to have some shared interests. You got to have some, Some who are the stakeholders and, and that type of thing.

But as far as those issues are concerned, what are you working on? How does that.

So I bring guests on my show who don't necessarily agree with me on those tough issues, and we have a discussion about it. So we've had discussion with people who are experts in critical race theory, and I listen to hear their perspective.

And what I've discovered through some of it is oftentimes what we hear in the media about what those difficult topics are, are inaccurate and at best, a simplistic explanation of where people stand. And so we just.

I get a chance to kind of go back and forth and just kind of tell me what you believe, and here's what I believe and see if we can come to some. Some agreement on how can we make this world a better place from a Christian perspective by using the gifts that God has given each of us to do that.

Right.

Reconciliation or healing or education.

And the education, meaning that you're sorting out the, the, the noise.

Well, education, what I've discovered is, especially in poor, undersourced, under resourced communities, education is a linchpin to either lift people out of a current situation or a current pathway to something better. And so I talked to educators who are trying to find innovative ways to improve education systems.

So I just had a guest on just this week who we talked about what he's doing in education to help improve that for students that he works with.

Yeah, I think as far as building bridges is concerned conceptually that you're not going to get anywhere just by brow beating people.

Right.

Yelling at each other, yelling at each other. But you can't simply just roll over either. You know, it's a fine line.

I mean, how do you, you know, if there's a, if there's a shared interest, right. You live on one side of the, of the, of the river and I live on the other side or what have you.

And it, for commerce sakes, it makes sense to build a bridge getting that buy in. You're not going to get that by, you know, sticking your finger in other people's eyes.

Right.

Although it might, might be great for ratings. Right. You know, and then, and then you end up just filling your. Oh, I agree with that, I agree with that.

I'm just going to keep listening to that, that and that. But yeah, our society is rather, rather polarized.

So give you an example. I had a guest on, we were talking about reproductive rights.

Funny thing is, what she's a former Catholic and we were talking about she's pro abortion and her philosophy was, is that she was pro abortion because abortion was being pushed on the under resourced, underserved community by white supremacists. And so I asked her some tough questions like so why would a white supremacist want to have more black and brown babies?

And she hadn't thought about that argument. She just kind of repeated talking points. And when I got her really think about the logic of the argument, I'm like, that's an illogical conclusion.

So we just, we had a great discussion about it, but I wanted her to kind of think about sometimes the things that we hear or we think we believe don't make logical sense. And we had a great conversation and we walked away, I think both thinking, at least understanding each other's perspective a little bit more.

Yeah, that's really tough. I think an observation would be that in our society if a woman says that she's having a baby, we say that's fantastic, we're so happy for you.

And at the same time that she says, well, I had an abortion and we still say that's good, you're taking care of yourself. So we're not, you know, we, we don't, as a society, I don't think that we, our message is not consistent yeah, right.

Yeah. Whereas we, we should, we should say that must have been really hard for you.

How did you, how are you mostly dealing with that, that tragic loss in your life?

I can't imagine.

Yeah, I mean that, that would be my response to the person who said, and abortion.

How are you dealing with the loss?

Yeah,

yeah. There was a, an actress who came on one of these talk shows and she admitted to having done it and she was applauded.

You know, it was that, that mixed message. Whereas it's such an awful circumstance. It's just got to be just shake you to your core. Yeah.

That you felt so hopeless that that's the only option you came up with.

Yeah. One of the questions that you asked me is, I'll ask you, are you a goofball?

Well, my family would say, so.

How are you a goofball?

Well, I like to have fun. I think if you take yourself and life too seriously, life gets to be overwhelming.

So you have to learn to get through life with a little bit of sense of humor and a little bit of. I say if you laugh, if you get a good laughing every day, you're healthier. So.

Well, the fourth of July was coming up and I'm like, we got to celebrate us. We were just on the outside of Baghdad, pretty much in the desert, 125 degrees outside, that type of thing. So I thought we need to have a party.

And our unit was from Iowa, Waterloo. Dubiyuk. Dubuque. Yeah. And it was an engineer outfit out of. Out of Iowa. I was cross level out of Milwaukee.

And I'm like, we need to have a party for the fourth of July. And there was a box of recreation equipment and I found some boxing gloves. And so we built.

So I built a boxing ring and I promoted the heck out of it. And it was really weird because I was in a war zone. And we were going to have combatives training and we were going to have managed violence.

And it didn't make any sense because I'm an engineer officer, but I'm acting like a boxing promoter. I'm in Baghdad, but I'm acting like I'm Don King, but I'm white. So that must mean that I'm the white Don King of Baghdad.

And for a year, every Saturday night, every other Saturday night, We would have. I would have boxing matches, and people loved it. They just. It was. It was good for morale. So watching.

I don't know about you, Keith, but watching two women fight is. Is people. Men will pay more attention to two women having a cat fight than if you just threw money on the ground.

They would say, I'll get the money later. I got to see this.

Right?

And the soldiers who had grudges against each other would get in the ring and usually, like, the first good punch, that was pretty much the end of the fight.

And the grudges,

and they're jumping up and down and they're screaming, you know, but it served a purpose, which was to get out the frustrations. Live entertainment. And after I had my first match, I asked the executive officer, this major.

I asked him who the morale officer was for the battalion, and he said, well, you are, Kenny. What? Huh? What. What am I doing now? So we built a running track and volleyball courts and basketball courts and things for the.

The rabbits to run on and workout tents and things like that. So it's a little bit of a goofy solution, but it worked for me, and it occupied my time.

Nothing much else to do in Iraq except for working and trying to sleep, right?

That's amazing. So, Ken, I'm going to ask you my favorite question, my other favorite question, okay? What do you want your legacy to be?

That's. You got a lot of good questions. I would say, what legacy? I'm not. How many people can name their great grandparents or tell them anything about them?

You know, it's like, we are a. A man's lifetime is like flame coming up out of a fire. You see it and then it's gone. Why God cares about us is a. Is bizarre.

But compared to the Almighty, where does that little wisp of flame? And we're gone, right? So what's my legacy? Will anybody know? Am I trying to impress human beings? I'm done with that type of thing.

But maybe I can be a watchman, right? And what does a watchman do? He watches and gives the alarm, right?

Our society has gotten so weirded out that there's almost like a mind virus that's going around the world. It's like, how many genders are there? There's two, right?

Because it says so in chapter two of the Bible, you know, and the two shall become one flesh. Okay? So there's a lot of strong. There's strong delusion out there.

So maybe if I'm just a watchman and saying, that's messed up, you know, there's, there's something wrong here. There's a lot of, um, I think that there's like a, something within human beings where we need to be fed spiritually, you know.

Right.

And if you don't get fed spiritually in a positive manner, whatever your faith tradition is, it's gonna be, there's gonna be a hole there and people fill it with all kinds of weird stuff, you know, self destructive things. And so, you know, just doing.

I suppose my legacy would be the attempt to be a positive influence and, and at the, at the least, you know, be a good example for what it's worth. I like that everybody, everybody sails your own ship, man. You know, I'm gonna have a party barge.

There you go.

And I'm gonna have a party barge and have a good time as long as I, as long as I'm able.

Great. So Kenny, where can people find you and find your books?

You can go to my website, kennydupar.com which will take you to Amazon and, or Audible. I, I, both of my novels. I've, my producer Paul and I made the audio the, the Audible books. And you can also check out my YouTube channel.

I've got some Kennykus Japanese poetry. Complete unabashed cultural appropriation without, without any reservation whatsoever. And I got some dating advice in there for the young guys.

Lotioning your feet. I mentioned that. That's very important. Make sure you do that, Keith. By the way, before you put your socks on, take it from this old soldier.

Your feet will take you where you want to go. Take care of your feet, Keith.

There you go. Well, Kenny, thanks so much for sharing your wisdom, your humor and your heart with us today. I appreciate it.

For our listeners, check out Kenny's novels and his YouTube channel for a mixture of laughter and insight like those great advice about washing your feet. Remember, building bridges takes effort, but it's worth it. Until next time, keep leading with faith and with purpose. Kenny, thanks so much.

Thank you.