Today on the WWIA Podcast, we're honored to welcome an incredible friend and supporter of the Foundation, Mr. Danny Kirsic.....a filmmaker, cinematographer, musician, and Air Force Veteran whose remarkable career has spanned more than four decades. Growing up in a military family and traveling the world from a young age, Danny developed a passion for storytelling through photography, music, and film. His experiences in the U.S. Air Force, including helping document the historic evacuation of Saigon in 1975, profoundly shaped his creative vision and lifelong dedication to capturing authentic human stories.

Danny has since built an extraordinary career in television, film, and music, earning four Telly Awards, including one for WWIA's short film, Honor, Connect, Heal. He has contributed to more than 300 episodes of unscripted television and documentaries for major networks. From the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn, his adventures and work have taken him around the globe, always driven by a passion for storytelling and a commitment to excellence.

Danny resides in the North Georgia Mountains with his wife Suzan, also an accomplished still photographer. They have a daughter who is a successful writer and shares in the family's creative gene-pool, a Firefighter son-in-law and two grandchildren. We are honored to welcome Danny as he speaks about his military service, creative journey, and the experiences that have made him one of the industry's most respected visual storytellers.

Takeaways:

• The WWIA Podcast is dedicated to bringing honor and healing to America's combat wounded veterans.
• Mr. Danny Kirsic, a filmmaker and Air Force Veteran, shares insights from his extensive career.
• The importance of storytelling in connecting with and supporting combat-wounded Veterans is emphasized.
• Danny Kirsic's unique experiences in the military and the arts illustrate the power of creativity in overcoming challenges.
• The podcast highlights the collaborative efforts of various individuals to support Veterans through creative means.
• The conversation underscores the profound impact of personal connections and shared experiences in the healing journey of Veterans.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• WWIA
• First Watch
• Ammo.com

Foreign.

Hello and welcome to the WWIA Podcast.

We're honored to have you join us in our mission to bring honor, connection and healing to America's combat wounded Purple Heart heroes.

If this is your first time listening to this podcast, we welcome you.

If you're a returning listener.

Thanks for coming back.

Please be sure to tell others about our podcast and leave us a review.

If you're enjoying what you're hearing today on the WWIA podcast, we are honored to welcome an incredible friend and supporter of the foundation, Mr. Danny Kircic, a filmmaker, cinematographer, musician, and Air Force veteran whose remarkable career has spanned more than four decades.

Growing up in a military family and traveling the world from a young age, Danny developed a passion for storytelling through photography, music and film.

Danny has since built an extraordinary career in television, film and music, earning four telly awards, including one for WWIA short film Honor Connect, Heal.

He's contributed to more than 300 episodes of unscripted television and documentaries for major networks from the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn.

His adventures and work have taken him around the globe.

Always driven by a passion for storytelling and a commitment to excellence, Danny resides in the North Georgia mountains with his wife Susan, also an accomplished still photographer.

They have a daughter who's a successful writer and shares in the family's creative gene pool, a firefighter son in law, and two grandchildren.

We're honored to welcome Danny as he speaks about his military service, creative journey, and the experiences that have made him one of the industry's most respected visual storytellers.

Let's go ahead and join the conversation with John and Danny right now.

Hi, I'm John McDaniel, founder and CEO of the Wounded warriors in Action foundation.

And this is our podcast, Honor, Connect and Heal.

It's early June.

Okay, it's actually d day.

Happens to be my oldest son Dylan's birthday.

Happy birthday if you're ever listening to this, buddy.

But I have with me in the studio today a friend of mine.

How long have we known each other, Danny?

Man, it's a decade.

Decade.

Well over a decade.

12 To 15 years, we didn't count.

But Danny Kurzak's here with me.

And Danny and I have been, you know, known each other, have a professional relationship.

He supported the foundation.

I think, you know, my first memory of us doing anything together was probably The Honor Connect Heal video that we did.

Remember that?

Yeah, I do.

Actually, the first time we met is when Doug McMahon connected us.

Oh, that's right.

And we had, we met over lunch at the marina when my wife and I came down.

Okay.

That's when we first met you because it all started with Doug saying, you got, I want you to meet this guy.

And so that we actually met each other and then started talking and then it just happened from there.

Everything happened from there.

That's right.

And then we shot on our connect heel up and went to Pitlock, Maine and we've done a whole bunch of other things.

And here we are some 12, 15 years down the road, whatever it is, and you're back here in Florida.

You're in my office.

We got two combat wounded veterans.

Our leadership development program is happening as we speak.

We just finished having a nice breakfast and we thought we'd come in the studio and capture this opportunity because Danny is a person who I admire a lot.

You're a tremendous.

I guess we say it in the pre show.

Your title is say it again how.

You said it in a nutshell.

I take pictures and I write songs.

There you go.

And that really kind of wraps a 70 year game you were in.

You're a veteran, you were in the Air Force.

And tell us that story, you know, give us the wave tops of that.

Because it's interesting.

We were chatting about it last night.

I knew you're, you know, you started out as a drummer, your dad got you a guitar and the next thing you know you're in the Air Force base playing for the Air Force band or something like that.

Yeah, it was, I, I went to high school in Europe, in, in Italy and when we came back to the states in, in 72, my dad was telling me, he said, you know, you need to make a choice.

He, you know, they're still drafting, you know, for Nam and right now you have choices.

And we got back to the States.

He, we, we went to Central Command in MacDill.

A couple months later he called after I'm well into traveling with like east coast bands, playing hotels and just having a party.

He calls me up and goes, man, you're not going to believe this, but the Air Force who was always had bands, all the, all, all the branches of the service have bands.

But, but because they were going through such a period of time of bad press because of the war mostly that the Air Force was not just going to have a band, they already had a band, but they wanted to put a Rock band together.

A six piece, six, seven piece rock band for the purpose of public relations.

I mean, it was, they knew what they were doing.

It was a plan.

And he goes, they're going to start looking for people and you have to audition and yet to go the process.

If you get picked, you're in.

And that's kind of how it started.

You know, I auditioned actually as a singer that I didn't even have to play guitar.

And I got the gig.

I'll never forget the song.

The song was MacArthur Park.

Richard Harris's version of MacArthur park was the, the, the song that they gave you to see if you could do the job.

You had to sing and play that.

Or I didn't have to play it.

I, I just, and that's, and I'd never even heard that song.

I don't know what that is.

Let me tell you, if you ever pull it up sometime, it's a tacky old tune, but my gosh, it is a tough.

Got your job.

And I was younger then.

My voice was, you know, it was different and it took a lot of work, but, you know, I killed it, I guess.

Awesome.

And I got the gig.

And of course I had to go to basic.

Basic was interesting because, well, you know what basic is?

It's like they, they just beat you up for eight weeks or whatever.

But it's the Air Force, so, yeah,.

It's not that bad.

It's kind of, it's a bit of a cakewalk.

But my dad used to be a drill instructor.

He was a drill instructor for years at Lackland.

So it's like I'd already heard all the stories.

And he told me how to do it, you know, keep a low profile,.

Don't stick out, don't volunteer.

Although.

Yeah, so I, I, but what was funny is they were taking us out multiple times a week, like for rehearsals and stuff.

So it was the, the drill instructor was driving him crazy because that kind of made me stick out and it made him want, he wanted me more simply because I was getting out of everything, you know, so that was fun.

And then he would have me on Sundays.

Like, Sundays he was beating me up.

You know, the toothbrush in the bathroom thing, he was killing me with it.

And then I had a buddy in, in the, in the squadron.

He goes, man, he go, he goes, I, I heard you play guitar.

He go, oh yeah, I play guitar.

He goes, he goes, man, he goes, they're always needing people for this.

They have a thing called folk mass now.

And I'm like, I Didn't even know what that was.

Folk mass.

Folk mass?

Yeah, like a. Oh, yeah.

It was a mass done in folk style.

Well, what it is, they would have musicians, and they would.

A band would play, and.

And then everybody'd sing, and then they'd give a sermon or whatever.

And so I thought, wait, wait a minute.

All I gotta do is play acoustic guitar at the church.

He goes, yeah, a red guitar.

In the truth, baby, that was it.

So now.

Now my.

My Di.

He can't even get me on Sundays because now I'm in church on Sundays.

It was.

It was funny, but I had a great, great time at basic, and.

And then they sent us to McDill,.

Which is, by the way, as the crow flies, about eight miles from where we are right now across.

Exactly.

Across the bay, man.

Yeah.

And it was funny, like, when you.

It's a long time ago, but I remember, like, when you come out of basic, you.

They give you a chance to put all these places that you'd like to go, like, oh, I want to be stationed here.

I want to be stationed here.

I want to be stationed here.

And it's like after you would get all our shots and stuff, we'd all sit around talking and all these guys going, hey, man, this is.

Look at my list.

I'm going to go to Hawaii.

They think they're going to go to these places, right?

Hello, Korea.

And I.

And I just.

I did.

And mine was, like, blank.

I didn't even fill it out because I knew I was going to Tampa.

And they're going, how do you know where you're going?

I just, you know, they told me, that's where I'm going.

So they had taken an old bank on the base that they.

That closed down, and then they retooled it as a studio and rehearsal facility.

Was really nice.

So then that's where we all met.

And we had our.

You know, our.

Our office people.

We had actually.

We actually.

We had songwriters and arrangers, then we had the captain and all the comm.

And then we had like a.

Like a.

Maybe a dozen players.

Have you been to McDill anytime lately?

Because I think it'd blow you away.

It's right there.

We should go look at it.

I wouldn't mind that at all.

The last time I was there was in the 70s.

Oh, man, it's.

So we got.

I'll have to take you over there.

You'll have to see it.

I mean, you got Centcom, and so centcom's still there.

But when I got Here.

Geez.

Well, I remember I first visited socom.

I went to, say, in the.

In the mid.

I guess it was.

Yeah, mid-90s, I think.

And Centcom.

No, it's before then.

It was before Desert Storm Shield.

So CENTCOM was like headquarters, was like a shack.

Like, it was a backwater command.

And then Desert Storm Shield happened, you know, the invasion of Iraq and Kuwait, first by Saddam, and then CENTCOM grew, and then the problem set in the Middle east, continued to grow.

That's their aor.

And then CENTCOM just blew up.

Its campus.

Literally has blown up.

It's quite impressive.

And on the same chunk of terrain, there is really three units, I guess.

There's centcom, socom, Special Operations Command, and then it's an Air force base with C141s.

No, KC141s.

So they're.

They're.

The refueling mission.

So there's a whole bunch of Air Force guys running around with that mission set, air refueling sort of thing.

So it's.

It's.

It's a happening.

It's a happening place.

We.

I think you'd like it.

But let me ask you one back real quick.

Closing out on the.

On your, you know, musical career.

I know you're still playing.

And we're.

We're.

As soon as we finish this podcast, we're going to my house and we're breaking out the guitars.

It's true.

Well, the guys are fishing right now, so they're.

We got a few hours of time to kill.

But I wanted to do this podcast and then go break out the guitars and.

And have some fun.

But you, at one point, you were with the Dolly Parton Band, ma'.

Am.

You took a big jump there in time.

Yeah, well, I mean, you were in the Air Force.

You were in a lot of bands, right?

And then.

And then I remember drinking, having a glass of whiskey with you in some little shack and.

With the Pitlock Maine by candlelight.

And that's when I was like, this is a cool dude, because you were telling me some of these stories about being in rock bands, and you had mentioned the.

The Dolly Parton.

And I was like, holy crap.

I mean, this isn't just some dude that fell off the turnip truck.

This is a real.

No kidding musician here.

And he, you know, he knows what he's doing.

And I was like, well, anyway, so, yeah, you've played some.

Tell us about some of those experiences.

Any cool stories there?

You mean Dolly stories?

Yeah, I mean, you know, she Is she's my favorite person, period.

She's like the real deal is.

Everybody says that about her.

It is true, man.

She's like.

I'd like to say there's nothing fake about her because we all know that's not true.

But.

But she's like.

There's nobody more honest with her.

Yeah.

Like she's.

She disarms you as a host because the first thing she does is attack herself.

She gets all that out of the way and then you got nothing to do.

Nothing, man.

That's a good way to do it.

But no, man, she.

It was a couple year run with her and where she signed the chat paychecks and a couple of things stuck out.

My favorite thing was actually the bus.

Her bus at the time, because she didn't travel with the band is like in the.

In the rear of the tour buses.

The sleep.

The sleeping suite.

But she had these.

These cabinets, these overhead cabinets that wrapped around the entire suite and like you'd have in a kitchen.

Kitchen.

And everyone had a wig in it.

Like it's like you open it up and there was.

I don't even know how many hairs.

Custom built.

I mean, you never saw her with her real.

Ha.

Her.

And she's a blonde anyway.

She's like a dirty blonde.

But yeah, she's.

She's just beautiful.

I just thought that was so cool.

She got a sweet voice too, man.

She.

She.

She really is.

She recently came back and released like an album not long ago, I think.

At least I thought she was gonna.

I don't know.

I know that around the time that I was.

I. I quit playing out there was.

She was going from just her, you know, her typical, you know, radio hit stuff too.

She wanted to get back to grass and more.

And she's got a lot of grass, bluegrass and she got a lot of cousins and nephews that are like big time players.

Yeah.

So she wanted to put something together using them, you know, the.

The family and some other pickers.

But she.

She went.

That she went back to the roots, so to speak.

You know, she did a couple albums like that and.

And she even did some rock covers in bluegrass too, which I thought were super cool because I know she liked Train, the song Train Train, which is a cool tune, but doing it in grass is like even cooler, man.

Right.

So.

And I played with her.

Played with her sister Rachel, her brother, who just recently passed away, and Randy, bless his heart.

And pretty much everybody in the family I picked with at some point.

Yeah.

So you're.

You're You're.

Let me ask you, so beyond this musical talent that you have, great, great story, and I can't wait to jam with you and learn from me a little bit this afternoon.

But let's talk about your, your present job.

You know, what you're doing.

I mean, you worked.

You were the, I don't know, you were the co producer and, and, you know, video guy and the photographer, the director of photography for, you know, our Honor Connect heel piece and you did the Long Road Home with Jeremy Smith and we did a thing in Mocan and you were the man behind the scene pulling all that together.

Bob helped, obviously.

He was, you know, kind of directing the show, but it was.

If you look at that, those, those works, they're all very, very high quality and you've got an eye for it.

And, you know, just this morning you're flying a drone out there as the guys are, you know, shoving off out into Tampa Bay and just all of your work is super high quality.

And people hire you to do this now, right?

I mean, you're shooting a lot of boats, you said.

But talk to us about what's going on today with your, with your work.

What would be a typical.

Because you, you also did the Tread Barda show, did you not?

For the longest time.

Yeah, I, I was the field producer and, and lead camera on that show and I think, I think we did over there was a lot.

I don't even know how many episodes we did.

We did like, like eight or nine years.

I mean.

Yeah.

At the time.

I remember it being like the longest running outdoor sporting program in.

In history for a while.

It's been eclipsed, I'm sure, by other things now, but back then it was like that was the heat barter the hard way.

There's the Bart away and there's the hard way.

Yeah, yeah, the hard way.

The bar.

The hard way.

The bar is for all of his idiosyncrasies that would drive any normal person out of their mind.

He's difficult.

He was great on camera, man, but he was.

He.

I don't know how to explain Tread.

He's since passed.

But.

But we were the highest funded, longest running outdoors TV show, period.

I mean, we like sponsors.

Mean, he had good sponsors, right?

Hey, great sponsors.

But when it first started, it was NBC, you know, and, and they would.

They.

At that time, they just threw a ton of money at us and we went, holy smoke.

The only thing that he's known.

Tread was known for fishing.

That was his thing.

He's a. I thought he was a big hunter.

No, but he was.

But the, the network made him a hundred because they said that was.

We want like 70, 30.

We want 30% on the water and 70% on land.

So he, but he, he thought he was a great hunter.

But what he.

I heard other stories.

I know them all, but I know where all the skeletons are.

But he, they went through a couple producers, field producers, because he, he owned them.

You know, he was such a.

He could have it his way.

He was a handful of man.

And like a lot the previous producers before I was always a shooter, but I wasn't running anything.

But he, they would just, he'd just get them to the point where their heads would explode and boom, you're fired, you're gone.

You know.

But him and I, you know, it was one of those things like a bully.

It's like you can get bullied, but as soon as you stand up.

Yeah.

They back down and you have that moment, that little come to Jesus moment.

And all of a sudden I don't know if you.

They feel like you're on equal footing, but they kind of respect you a little bit more.

Exactly.

And stand up to bullies, folks.

Yes, that's, that's the moral story.

But no, we had a great time.

And the reason he used.

He was a bow hunter.

We never used a traditional, traditional archer,.

Straight up longbow man.

Yeah.

And I think that's what made the show.

He shot a pheasant out of the air once and they caught it on film.

And I remember you telling me this story.

I think it was you, like how many takes they had to get.

It was an all day thing for that shot.

Yeah, I mean, I saw it live.

Well, I watched the program.

This is before I knew you.

And I was like, holy crap.

And then I remember Doug McMahon.

God bless you, Doug, for turning me on to Danny here.

You know, I get to get a.

You know, got to give you a plug there.

Hope you're, hope you're getting to listen to this.

But I remember you guys went up to bc.

Yeah.

With Doug and Julie up there and Skinner Creek Outfitters and you guys hunted with Barda black bear or something like that.

Yeah.

I think that actually the first berry got was a grizzly early on.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I think that was like one of the first shows we.

This is crazy because we went up there with another outfitter and in the course of making that show is when we met Doug, we happened to cross paths with Doug.

In the wood line.

No.

Well, at this place they Had a stand which was.

It looked like this old farm.

I wish I could remember where it was.

Oh, I've been there.

He took us there.

But it was.

I think it was owned by Doug's family or something.

It's kind of like abandoned farmland.

Farmhouse.

Yes.

Yeah, we shot there once.

Yeah, Nosler's Magnum TV did a bit with us up there.

And that's where Doug took us as one of the scenes.

Well, that's how we got.

That's how I got hooked up with Doug because we were having a hard time.

This was a.

This was a black bear hunt.

This wasn't the first grizzly hunt, but like the first black bear hunt up there.

We were with a gentleman.

Leonard.

Leonard Ellis was the guy's name.

Super guy, super outfit up there.

And that's a whole nother story.

Oh, my God, that'd be like a 12 part miniseries.

Just talking about Leonard and his operation there.

It's amazing.

But.

But Leonard, we kind of needed help because we were running out of time.

And he goes, well, he's like, I know this guy.

I mean, you had.

You got it.

You had to get a kill.

We had to get a kill.

So that's when he kind of paired up with Doug and that's when we met him.

And then, you know.

Did Doug facilitate the harvest?

Yeah, yeah.

Kill it.

And didn't take any credit.

Do you use his hounds?

We did, yeah.

That's the fastest way to do it.

It's the.

I'd never done that before.

Being from the South, I've certainly seen it done with, you know, raccoon dog, but.

But not chasing bears.

And these.

His dogs are so world class.

Yeah, man.

I mean, couldn't even.

They're all collared and they all got GPS and they all got their assigned names and they're trained by how many times you can remotely hit them.

You know, not to hurt them, but.

Right.

Just a little.

Little shock, you know.

And that's how he talks to them from two months.

But it was just amazing.

All of a sudden it turned into this epic show.

And I remember one time he invited.

Me up there to go lynx hunting.

And just me, he's like, dude, you get.

He says, he calls me up, he goes, what are you doing, like two weeks from now or next week or so?

It was like short timeline.

I'm like, I break on my calendar.

I go, you know, he goes, well, let me tell you what you're doing.

You're coming up here to hunt lynx.

And I go, I am.

He goes, yeah, you are.

And so I said, okay.

And so I flew up there and we'd already met because we did had done several events with him and we had a whole series of events that were going on up there at Skinner Creek Outfitters and with combat wounded guys.

And so I said, okay, went up there and I said, well.

He was like, well, you know, any good guys?

Like, well, what are your, you know, what are your expectations?

I said, listen, I'd like to harvest a mature tom, you know, links.

That's it.

And that's really all I'm interested in.

So we went out and did.

And tried to do that.

We treed one late one night and it was a nice length, but it was past shooting hours so we didn't take it.

But the next day we're out there doing the same thing and it's snowed and the dogs are on a track and they're like three grid squares away.

Like this is British Columbia in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah, like there's logging roads, a few logging roads and forest.

And when the dogs chase a critter now they don't know if it's.

You don't know if they've got a bear treed, probably not a bear because it's wintertime, they're hibernating.

But it's either a big cat or a lynx, typically at that time of year anyway.

So I'm looking at this thing on his where these dogs are on the GPS and I'm like, dude, there's no way to get there besides like either foot.

He goes, well, we'll go have dinner and then we'll get the snow machines out.

I'm like, cool.

So we went and had dinner.

And the whole time we're having dinner he's like, yeah, they're still treed, you know, I mean, you can see where these animals are like three grid squares away.

And so we finished dinner getting on the sleds with the rifle, you know, and go hauling ass across the country.

And literally, I mean, he's a wild man.

I had to stop the snow machine.

This is pitch dark at night.

It's like 11 o' clock at this time.

I had to stop the snow machine, shut it off and listen to where he went.

Yeah, to go get him now.

He goes, well, why don't you follow his tracks?

Well, because when you're out there, there's a couple of tracks that split, you know, and the same, he'd been using some of those trails, so I didn't know which way to go long Story short, we get to the tree, and sure enough, there's a lynx up there.

And we recover the dogs.

But one of the dogs has been wounded.

He's hurt.

So, no, he's like, all right, you need to take.

I think it was Oscar.

You need to take Oscar with you.

He put.

He put the dog in between my legs on the snow machine, and here I am driving across British Columbia with a rifle strapped to my back and a dog in my lap on a snow machine.

I have no idea where I'm going or what I'm doing, but it was fun.

He's.

He's.

He's a good.

I love Oscar.

Oscar was a great dog.

It was.

He.

He was, I think, one of his top dogs, for sure.

Yeah.

He.

I mean, he used to carry stapler with him, you know.

Oh, yeah, Something happened.

You staple the dog.

Yeah, they get.

They get whacked a lot.

Yeah.

Those.

The most impressive group of dogs I've ever seen in my life.

Yeah.

So tell us about what you're doing now with this photography.

You're a videotographer, is that right?

Yeah, but my specialty is.

Is outdoors.

Big game and wildlife, man.

That's what you love to do.

I mean, I freaking love.

I never was a big hunter.

I never was a big fisherman.

I never.

I. I enjoy watching people just being in love with it, and that's what I like to capture.

I mean, I'm good at.

And, like, the way I got hooked up with that, strangely enough, was early on, I was writing songs for the TV shows and for hunting shows, and.

We got to have a jingle, by the way, you gotta.

Maybe that's what we should do this afternoon is created a WWI jingle.

Sorry for interrupting.

No, we should start.

We've had that conversation before.

We'll get to that.

But I'll show you the process.

I think it would be fun.

But the guy who was producing the.

These shows actually happened to live really close to me.

So I would watch these shows.

I didn't have to communicate with them much because I wrote the songs that now they got the songs right.

But then what it is, I would see.

I would watch what the footage.

I would see the shows, and I go, like, man, I could.

I can do this, you know?

Like, I want to go do that.

You know, I want to this time.

I'm.

I'm still on the road playing.

Playing music, but I kind of wanted to stay home more, and I said, I'd love to be a film.

He goes, like, it's a.

It's A great gig if you can do it.

But there's only so many seats at the table, you know, we can't.

You can't just hire another guy.

You have to wait till somebody either quits or d ring and sure enough, man, one of these guys.

I hate to laugh, but it wasn't long after that conversation the one of the guys drowned in the Bahamas shooting a TV show.

That's not a good way to go.

Yeah.

And I think it was after the shoot.

Something stupid happened in a marina, but he ended up drowning.

So the next shoot was out of the Hamptons where Tread lived.

They were going after bluefin tuna.

Bluefin tun.

That's right.

Remember that?

And it was.

Which I had never been a big boat guy.

Like a little boat guy.

Yeah.

But not a.

Not a big fancy fishing boat guy.

Like a big old Hatteras or something running through in the water.

Yeah.

And I don't even know what that.

Yeah.

But I think it wasn't that big a boat.

It might have been like a 40 footer.

Wasn't that big a sport fisherman.

But we were going out of freaking at that time.

We were going out of the Hamptons, somewhere in the Hamptons.

And we were going to Hydrographers.

Hydrographers Canyon, which is like if you're heading out to the Azores.

I mean it's like we're talking like 80 miles out in the.

The Atlantic.

I mean in the roughest part.

Looking for the Gulf Stream or something.

Yeah.

Where the cold meets the world.

And.

And I. I had never done that.

That's a hall.

And it was in the weather.

I remember that day, man.

Because the weather was.

Was not great.

And we were going all over the place and.

And I'll tell you right now, when they.

To when they talk about you get seasick and you turn green.

Yeah.

That's not a.

That's not a.

A saying.

You're green, dude.

I mean, I remember going.

I. I was.

Your face loses all color, man.

Yeah.

It was common because the only thing that he took on this trip that he always ever did, he would stop and get these frozen freaking burritos.

And then they were all just horrible reheat burritos.

And that's all we.

The boat.

And so when you're seasick, that doesn't really horrible.

And I just remember Tread going.

I don't know.

What.

Can I. I guess you BLEEP on here.

I don't know.

But yeah, he was.

He cussed a lot, you know.

And he go, you're not.

You're not puking on my effing boat, you know.

And so I went in down to the head, which was horrible move.

Because as bad as it was on deck, it was worse.

And I remember looking in the.

In the mirror at myself, myself, I'm going, oh, my God, this is the most embarrassing moment.

And I'm really.

Can't snap out of it either.

That's the thing, man.

You can't snap out of it.

And I couldn't, I couldn't.

I couldn't regurgitate down there.

It's gonna do it.

Yeah.

So I come back up.

Couldn't yak, actually.

Sometimes you feel better.

I've never got to that stage, but I've seen a lot of dudes who, who have.

It's terrible.

It's horrible.

And you want to help them.

Like, I was out there with Luke.

We were in the Atlantic with my.

Both my boys and we were fishing for sails.

And this was last year.

And the captain says, yeah, the bite's on.

I'm like, awesome.

So we get out there and the seas are like five to seven foot rollers now.

We're not that far from shore, you can see shore.

But it was just one of those days, man.

And Luke decided.

Luke starts getting sick.

And here's this, you know, he's probably 8 years old at the time, and he's like, dad, I'm like, yeah, buddy.

He goes, I'm not feeling good.

And then, you know, like, it's okay.

You try to.

Try to coach him through it, but at the end of the day, he was turning green.

And I went to the captain, I said, listen, man, we gotta go.

I go, I'm gonna pay for the full day that we have you booked.

Okay?

Don't worry about it.

Let's just get this kid back to the.

So we're steaming back to the shoreline.

He's like, I gotta tell you, man, I. I respect what you did.

Most dads, or most people just say it up, buddy.

And because they paid all this money for to go out there and get sick and just get your butt handed to you.

But we went in.

Yeah.

So I've seen it.

Yeah.

So what happens?

You're on the boat, you're getting sick.

Yeah.

I come up and we're all kind of bunched up in right where you go into the galley.

Not the galley, but the little living room section, wherever you call it.

And the back door's open and it's like just gloomy, ominous looking outside.

So I'm standing in the back doorway.

Because I cool airs blowing on me, and, man, I couldn't hold anymore.

He goes.

And then Tread just look.

I turned around, looked at Shreddy goes again.

He goes, do not effing throw up on my boat, man.

It's like that.

So I went.

I thought, well, and he's hauling butt.

He must have.

They must have.

I mean, 15, 20 knots.

I mean, we were hauling in, I'm sure, because he's trying to beat.

They're trying to beat the weather and all that.

So I. I'm just going to go to the transom.

I'm going to go to the.

Well, that wasn't quite as easy as.

It looked because it's the distance, because.

The boat is, like, up, you know, and that thing's.

I mean, we're hauling.

You just don't want to paint his boat, man.

The top of the transom's like, even with the water now, because we're, like, tracking.

So I just slid down there, and I'm hanging over the back and.

And I'm Instantly felt so much better, man, as soon as I purged.

And it was horrible.

And I remember just turning around.

I'm on my knees.

I remember turning around with.

Sitting on my butt with my back against the transom, and there's Tread standing in the doorway, just looking down at me, shaking, shaking his head, man.

And I thought, like, you know what?

This is a wonderful experience.

I'm probably never going to do this again, you know, blah, blah, blah, to come home.

We wrapped the show up, and there was always two shooters, okay?

So we wrapped the show up, you know, went back the long ride back to.

Because we didn't go into Islip.

We.

We came in through New York, through LaGuardia.

So that long ride back and.

And, you know, a couple days later, we go back and do like a re.

Brief, you know, with the producer and told him what happened, what we got, blah, blah, blah.

And.

But, man, you know, a week later, he calls up and goes.

He goes, you feel like doing this again?

I go, man, you want me to go back out there?

He goes, the footage was great, you know, and yeah, Dread said, like, yeah, man, I can.

I can work with this, dude.

That's cool.

And that was it.

Like, you know, 300 freaking episodes later, you know.

Well, you got to get to know.

Yeah, obviously you can't help but get to know a guy, right?

And.

And I got super good at it, if I should say so myself.

It's when.

If you spend as much time as we did on these boats, Chasing big game.

I'm talking big game like marlin and tuna and, and whatever the heck else we might latch on.

To me and the other cameraman, it was like.

It's like a dance routine.

We'd all immediately know where we're going to be on the boat and what each one of us is going to shoot.

So it was.

So it was good.

Almost choreographed.

Very much choreographed.

Yeah.

And then once we got on land and started chasing games game, it's.

Yeah, I, I'm a good hunter.

Is like I know how to hunt and.

And the camera's the same as a gun.

Right.

It's just I'm shooting it with film instead of a. Yeah.

So we would always have.

The whole time we were on the air, we, like I said, we had two shooters.

One guy was always over the shoulder of the hunter, like right there with him looking down the barrel and close up, blah, blah, blah.

And the other camera was always the.

What we would call the alternate perspective.

So I'd be like at a 45 degree angle 100 yards away.

So that.

I loved that because I'm always by myself.

You usually got the hunter.

The best is a hunter, the guide and the cameraman and then the other cameraman, which is me.

So you got four people in the woods trying to hunt predators that are more than aware of the fact that you're there.

Right.

And it's hard to sneak up on something, something when you're, when you're coming at it from two different angles because they feel they don't have to hear your smell you.

That anybody that hunts knows that they sense pressure alone.

They.

They know, they just sense that.

Especially the dangerous game animals.

They understand that.

So we did that for years and we had it down, man.

I mean like never missed a kill shot.

You know, I don't even know how to explain it.

If you ever get a chance to, to find one of these episodes and watch them, they're.

They're pretty amazing.

Wow.

You know, I want to.

I'll change gears here in a little bit with you.

And I wanted to mention something that, you know, we're very proud of and it wouldn't have happened without you and your daughter Megan.

Actually, this probably goes back, I don't know, close to 10 years ago.

I don't know when she left ammo.com maybe eight, something like that.

I'd have to look.

But anyway, you mentioned that your daughter Megan worked at this place called ammo.com.

And I was like, okay, well, she,.

She actually owns her own company.

But she handles their brand.

Okay.

That's what it was.

Yeah.

So she is.

What was she doing for them?

Is she a marketeer of sorts?

It's like really weird.

It's like some.

When somebody asked my daughter, well, hey, what does your dad do?

She kind of.

Her hands go up in the air.

Like, I don't.

I don't know how to explain what she's.

What he does.

Okay.

Okay.

And it's the same thing with Megan.

Like, she handles brands.

She owns a company that, that markets brands or brand.

Brand management.

Brand management.

Yeah.

And like, so she's a writer, so she knows how to put into the.

Content that goes online to make whatever.

Their product is relevant.

I mean, she's.

She's just amazing at it.

And then when she.

She had a.

Right before ammo.com came on, she had a list of clients like that.

She worked them.

Right.

And then ammo.com came on and they vet.

Vetted her a lot because they only want certain type of people working for.

And what.

Basically what it was is they wanted to.

They wanted her full time.

So it's like she's going, well, I can't because I have these obligations to these other companies.

Well, how much are they paying you?

That kind of thing.

So what they did, they bought her out.

Basically.

We.

We want 100 of your time.

Oh, wow.

So that's.

When that's.

That first.

That's.

I think that was her first company with that said, look, we want you all the time, 100% of your attention.

And then that's.

That's how good position to be in.

It is.

But then you lose contact with all these multitudes of other.

Yeah, all your eggs are in one bucket.

Right.

And.

And she rode that a while until she.

They didn't let her go.

I mean, she, she respectively just said, you know, I've got to get back to these.

These people.

Well, it was right about that time.

And you connected me with her and, and we chatted and I'll introduce you to this team here.

They've got this.

Ammo.com is a company that sells ammunition online.

So if you're in the market for any type or brand of ammunition in any caliber that you can think of, it's [email protected] and so when you go to check out and it just delivers to your door, it's like the easiest thing in the world.

I do it all the time.

And so when you go to check out, you can click a button that says, you know, a portion of the proceeds from this sale will go to a charity, and I think there's three or four charities named.

And she got us to be one of those charities.

Right.

And so every quarter a check comes to the mailbox at my house from ammo.com for the foundation.

And I just want to publicly thank you and Megan, I hope you listen to this and thank you very much for that connection because we've been.

Been.

They've been faithful partners supporting our, our nation's combat wounded for many, many years.

And it's just amazing.

It's.

It's just we're very, very appreciative and thankful for.

For what they have done for our, our wounded veterans by way of support.

And it wouldn't have happened without, you know, your daughter.

So thank you.

Oh, thank you.

She's going to love hearing that.

Yeah, it's true, though, man.

It's true.

Okay, so let me ask you, man, what you've been helping us in the foundation for, as we said, about 12 years, maybe longer, and you've really helped tell the story, right, of what.

What's going on out there in this.

In this space.

And I want to thank you for all of your hard work and your talents because, you know, along with Bob Wheeler, who helped produce the Honor Connect Heal video, you're a storyteller.

You're capturing the story in video and still shots.

And you've done that with us over the years and done so magnificently.

Thank you.

And I want to thank you for that.

And tell us now, how do people, if people are interested in your work or getting to learn more about what you do and maybe, you know, looking to collaborate with you on a project, how do they find you?

Man, it's.

We.

It's weird.

I've been blessed because over the.

I would say the last 20 years, I mean, I started out working for people, right, or for the network or whatever, but now I'm an independent contract.

I'm a freelancer.

Perfect.

So up until now, it's all been word of mouth, like one client talking to another.

And it's.

It's been one wonderful.

You know, the only weird thing is that when Covid hit, it changed the way a lot of companies do things and including making unscripted television, that type of thing, especially with wildlife.

Because at the time it hit, we were.

I was with an organization in Canada, geo, the Guide Outfitters association of British Columbia, working on.

I remember that.

Yeah, stuff with him, some concert.

I can't remember what they called it, but all had to do with conservation, basically.

Love it.

Great, great group of people.

Oh my God.

In the backdrop to shoot on what, what better, more beautiful places there.

That's crazy.

And then we were doing content up there and you know, of course we had to leave.

And then after that it was like, you know, okay, this is the way we're going to do it.

That was different.

So in the last couple years, been finding the footing again with, you know, regular people calling me back.

I, I don't have, I don't advertise, you know, that basically I've been, I've been blessed that it's still like, who did that for you?

Or you know, or I know this guy or, you know, I'm like super cool with that.

Well, how do they get a hold of you, man?

I mean, you got to have, you know, a website.

Yeah.

I don't want to give out your phone number here, but I mean, how are folks gonna reach out to you, man?

We used to maintain a website.

My wife hates handle that.

But over the years we found out that we could.

You can tell when, what, how much activity that's seeing.

Yeah.

Am I, what am I getting anything from this?

People would go there to look at pictures and stuff, but honestly, through my, just my name alone, if you Google my name, I mean pages and pages and stuff will pop up.

But, but you got an email address that you're using.

I'm getting so much email, a lot of it, which I don't even want.

Right.

That the email that matters goes to my wife, one of her accounts.

But the best thing for me is honestly my phone number because my, my phone number, my cell phone number hasn't changed in 25.

Can they find that online?

You.

Heck, you could.

Yeah.

It's easy to find.

You go, you go to Facebook, get you some business.

I know, I pre.

I'm afraid it'll come, you know.

Sounds like you don't want it, you know.

Well, no, I know, but that's, that's the best.

Hey, being hard to get and hard to find, you know, because you have lots of, you know, high level obligations.

That's a good thing.

It means that you're, you know, you're in demand.

Well, you know, if you go, I have a Facebook page at Danny Kursik Images.

Okay.

And all my contact info.

There you go.

Perfect.

It's weird giving your, your phone number out over.

But my phone number is no secret.

You go to Danny Kirsic Images on Facebook.

You're good.

It's going to be on there.

Okay.

Perf.

You know, that's good.

You'll be able to contact me.

And.

And I'm telling you, even with email and Instagram, I'm there also.

But, man, that phone, that's.

That's key, man, because it's always.

It's always with me, and I see it right away.

Right on.

Well, I'll give you the last whack at the pinata, man.

I mean, what.

Do you want to share anything else with us here?

I appreciate your time.

I genuinely do.

I know we got to go play.

Some guitars, but know we can almost do this again because there's so much other.

There's so much stuff.

There's so many cool moments, man.

I've been so blessed.

I. I couldn't even begin to tell you the cool stuff that I've done and.

And the places I've been.

I'd have to be a.

A zillionaire to afford the places I've gone to.

Yeah.

Because I couldn't.

People pay me to do cool stuff, you know, Right between my dad traveling in the.

In the Air Force, you know, every.

Every three, four years, you're more moving.

And then when I got.

When I.

When he got out, I went in, and it was the same thing over and over again.

And then when I got out of this service, I was on the road, you know, that's why it's so weird, man.

It's like, I.

Like, I met my wife, I was on the road, and she was working, obviously.

She was.

She was a alignment for Southern Belle.

It was very cool, but she's a sweetheart.

Thank you.

And so we.

All our time together, we so few and far between.

It was like we're dating all the time.

And then when she retires and now we're living up in the mountains.

We're together all the time.

And bless her heart, she's like, is there something that you should be doing right now?

Like, there's some place you could be going, you know?

But, yeah, I still love traveling.

I don't like sitting home a lot.

I like to stay as busy as I can still.

I'm doing, like, everything from commercials to wildlife to.

I have been shooting a lot of boats for some reason, which I cool with it because it's beautiful.

The backdrops are always super nice.

Folks that are trying to sell and market.

No, no, no.

Like boat people that make boats.

Companies that make boats.

Okay, cool.

Very nice.

Yeah, I remember seeing some of your footage there, man, when we had the Hero on the Bay fishing tournament.

You took some awesome photos.

You know what I think it was a couple weeks ago you said something about that you were looking back on those pictures.

And so I actually went back and looked that I'm going like, oh my gosh, there was some cool shots.

You know what I do?

I tell the staff when we're trying to put together a piece of collateral material that's going to go out and do something.

Right?

Yeah.

And we're looking for images, I say first I want you to start, okay.

In the Danny Kersik file.

Okay.

We have it on Dropbox, Right.

Took all your photos, dumped them in there.

I said, if you're looking for a cool shot to put on a, you know, like, we got this end of year gift giving thing coming up.

20 Years where this is our 20th year anniversary.

I can't believe it, man.

Amazing, man.

It is.

But anyway, so I go to the Danny Kurzak file and start stealing stuff because it's all really good stuff in there.

Let me tell you.

I love shooting for you guys.

I mean, I mean, you personally is obvious, but like the, the, the men and the women that you have out in the field that you're helping, that you're sending on these missions, they are so, so nice to be around.

Yeah.

We had dinner with, with Jeremy and Derek last night.

And you're just, you know, there's so much respect at that table.

There's the four of us sitting there having dinner.

Yeah, there's just so much respect there.

I mean, I respect them.

They respect me.

They respect you.

You respect them.

You know, it's just, you know, and they're quiet, calm professionals considering what they've been through, you know, and it's just, it blows me away, man.

It just blows me away.

You know, you're doing, you know, you're doing good work when you, you know, are able to spend high quality time around people who, you know, that you know like and trust.

Right?

And that's, that's who, that's who's on this, on this boat, I can tell you that.

And, and it was really, it was neat.

And we got a couple more days.

They're going to be off the water here in a couple hours.

I've already got some photos, I've already been into some snook, but I deliberately decided, decided to not go on that fishing trip because, you know, one, I live here and I fish the waters all the time.

Captain Phil Pagley's out there with him right now fishing.

And I, I told the guys and Phil, I said, listen, these two guys are here for this leadership development program we got going, and they're not saltwater experts.

I know you're not going to turn them into saltwater fishing experts in.

In.

In a day, but they can observe and watch one of, I think, the finest guides in Tampa Bay and how he performs, how he's prepared and how he executes, and, you know, how he treats his clients and, you know, all of that, which is part of being, you know, a good guide.

And that's why we're doing this leadership development course, is to develop.

Develop them as leaders, and the more we can expose them to great Americans like you.

We're gonna do some media training.

That's why you're here, to help them, you know, understand that space and maybe work in that space a little more effectively to capture the essence of what's, you know, happening before, during, and after operations.

And then, you know, we've got a whole bunch of other things in that program.

There's some suicide prevention.

They're going to meet the staff for the first time.

These guys have never been here to this headquarters.

So we're bringing them in in groups of twos and threes to do this leadership development.

Just the guides, and it's a little bit more intimate space.

And, you know, I wanted to invite you along because, you know, you're a great American, and I think you can.

You know, I don't think.

I know you're adding great value to this space, and I know you're spending some quality time with them alone tonight, and I'm going to respect that time that you guys have together, you know, and that's.

Then we'll have dinner.

I think tonight we'll have another dinner, and then tomorrow they'll be in here doing a podcast and.

And they'll be here on Monday to meet the staff, and then they go home.

That's the program.

So I want to just take the opportunity.

Thank you, buddy.

Hey, thanks for having me.

I hope we ought to do a part two sometime and get a little more prepared and tell some cool stories.

Yeah, yeah.

You talked about unscripted.

We were having breakfast night, and we were talking about.

I was talking about the unpredictable nature of things, the uncertainty that surrounds us every day.

This idea of uncertainty.

Right, yeah.

Constant work, uncertainty and pain.

I took that from a TV show.

But it's true.

We all live in this space where there's all these things happening.

I said, I'm going to show you a little uncertainty.

You kind of looked at me funny.

I go, you don't know what we're going to do right after this.

You said we were going to go play guitars, but how'd you like to do a podcast?

You're like, dude, I'm come in.

You know, and so here we are.

But thank you again and we know, look forward to, you know, the rest of the weekend and, you know, appreciate you, buddy.

Dude, man, I. I can't thank you enough for letting me be part of what this organization does, man, and spending time with you.

It's worth a.

It's like a million dollar piece of bacon.

We had Million Dollar Bacon.

First Watch.

If you ever go to First Watch.

I'm not getting paid to do this, but you should go to a first watch and get the million dollar bacon because that is an experience and they call it million Dollar Bacon for a reason.

Yeah, it.

If that's the only thing you get while you're there, get.

You're a winner.

You're a winner.

Yeah.

If I was the matter of fact, if I was.

Let me see.

Let me do the numbers.

Fifty years younger, I would have a rock band called Million Dollar Bacon.

Actually, that's a good, good name for a, for a band.

That's freaking great, man.

Million Dollar Bacon.

Who's going to forget that?

Not me.

That's.

Well, it's like, it's like we got in trouble in the 70s, we.

Or the early 80s because we, we had a band called Free Beer for a while.

Oh, man.

And it was like, it lasted.

I think it lasted like a month.

And they ran you out.

The merchants ran you out.

They're like, no, dude, everybody's asking about this.

It goes free beer tonight, Free beer Friday and Saturday.

That's funny.

Like, I think there was a thing out there and they were doing it in Wisconsin for a while.

It's like free beer tomorrow, you know, and so show up and go, I'd like my free beer.

And they go, that's tomorrow.

That's genius, man.

Only in Wisconsin.

You gotta love it.

All right, buddy, thanks for being here.

We appreciate it and hope you guys enjoyed the program.

Thank you for listening to the WWIA podcast.

To learn more about the Wounded warriors in Action foundation and how you can get involved, please visit our [email protected] or follow us on social media on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

If you'd like to comment or offer feedback about our podcast, or if you have a suggestion for a future episode, please email us at Podcast.

Thank you for your support and for helping us honor, connect and heal our combat wounded Purple Heart heroes.

Through the power of the great outdoors.