After 22 years, four deployments, and duty stations from Fort Bragg to Korea to Italy, retired Army First Sergeant and Ranger Mike Pickens and his wife, Army veteran Amanda Pickens, thought coming home to Oklahoma would be the easy part. It wasn't.

In this honest, deeply relatable conversation, Mike and Amanda open up about the side of military life that rarely gets talked about: the transition out. They share what it was like to raise two kids overseas with no family nearby, why the structure and built-in community of the military is so hard to replace, and the quiet shock of returning "home" to find that friends and even family had moved on. Amanda speaks candidly about the mental-health toll of that isolation, and Mike reflects on trading a career of leading soldiers for a mission he never trained for — figuring out who you are after the uniform comes off.

Then they found the Eagle Ops Foundation. What started as showing up to a golf night with zero interest in golf became something they didn't know they were missing: a positive social connection with other veterans, a "found family," and a support system built for the whole family — not just the service member.

Whether you're a veteran, a military spouse, or someone who loves one, this episode is a powerful reminder that the hardest battles often come after service — and that no one has to fight them alone.

🇺🇸 Learn more about the Eagle Ops Foundation and find a Rally Point near you.

Subscribe wherever you listen — Apple, Spotify, and YouTube — and we'll see you at the next Rally Point.

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

Williams CEO Chad Zamrin joins Shep on the Eagle Ops Rally Point Podcast to talk veteran workforce investment, mental health stigma in construction and the military, and why supporting organizations like Eagle Ops is one of the highest-ROI decisions a business leader can make.

Chad opens up about his 10 months as CEO of Williams — an $8B company forecasting 10% annual growth — and what the company's WWII legacy taught him about servant leadership, problem-solving, and community.

Topics covered:

• Williams' role in building the WWII War Emergency Pipelines
• John Williams surviving Iwo Jima and becoming the company's longest-serving CEO
• Veteran suicide rates in construction — and what companies can actually do
• Eagle Ops' Freedom Shoots and the veteran whose life it turned around
• How to reach 285,000 Oklahoma veterans at scale
• What Chad tells other CEOs about investing in veteran nonprofits

Eagle Ops Mission: Connecting relationships to resources to bring our heroes home. eagleops.org

PART TWO with Ryan "Bacon" Nelson was a Marine Corps veteran, NBC specialist, combat deployment survivor, and by his own admission.... a guy who had no business walking into a veteran organization in his mid-30s.

Then a fellow Marine dragged him to a backyard fire pit in Tulsa. He broke a chiminea within the first ten minutes. And he never really left.

In this conversation with Eagle Ops founder Shep, Ryan walks through his full journey from joining the Marine Corps to change himself before 9/11 flipped everything upside down, to coming home without a clear direction, to finding his purpose through a mission that asks one simple question before every decision: Will it help veterans?

He talks about the stat that doesn't get enough airtime that over 6,000 veterans die by suicide every year in the U.S., more than 100 times the combat losses from 20 years of war. And why upstream community is the answer that organizations like Eagle Ops are quietly building, one Rally Point at a time.

This episode is about what real service looks like, what real leadership looks like, and what happens when a guy who thought nonprofits were just PR vehicles finds out he was built for exactly this.

Eagle Ops is a veteran-focused nonprofit connecting Oklahoma veterans through community, events, and shared mission.

Learn more at eagleops.org.

Free top 5 Vet resources Guide; https://resources.eagleops.org/eagle-ops--veteran-resource-guide-funnel

Ryan "Bacon" Nelson was a Marine Corps veteran, NBC specialist, combat deployment survivor, and by his own admission.... a guy who had no business walking into a veteran organization in his mid-30s.

Then a fellow Marine dragged him to a backyard fire pit in Tulsa. He broke a chiminea within the first ten minutes. And he never really left.

In this conversation with Eagle Ops founder Shep, Ryan walks through his full journey from joining the Marine Corps to change himself before 9/11 flipped everything upside down, to coming home without a clear direction, to finding his purpose through a mission that asks one simple question before every decision: Will it help veterans?

He talks about the stat that doesn't get enough airtime that over 6,000 veterans die by suicide every year in the U.S., more than 100 times the combat losses from 20 years of war. And why upstream community is the answer that organizations like Eagle Ops are quietly building, one Rally Point at a time.

This episode is about what real service looks like, what real leadership looks like, and what happens when a guy who thought nonprofits were just PR vehicles finds out he was built for exactly this.

Eagle Ops is a veteran-focused nonprofit connecting Oklahoma veterans through community, events, and shared mission.

Learn more at eagleops.org.

Free top 5 Vet resources Guide; https://resources.eagleops.org/eagle-ops--veteran-resource-guide-funnel

What separates PTSD from moral injury? VA clinical chaplain and suicide prevention specialist Dr. Carter Check joins Shep on the Eagle Ops Rally Point Podcast to answer that question and a lot more. Drawing from his own military story, decades of work with veterans at the Eastern Oklahoma VA, and a doctoral dissertation from Vanderbilt, Carter breaks down why the deepest wounds veterans carry don't show up on MRIs, why "treating" veterans may actually work against healing, and how Eagle Ops Rally Points are scientifically interrupting the loneliness and isolation that drive veteran suicide. Real, raw, and deeply human. This is Part 1 of 2.

Learn more about Healing in the Wild and Dr. Check here:

www.drcartercheck.com

visit www.Eagleops.org for resources and more info

Were you ever denied by the VA and just stopped trying? This episode is for you.

Rally Point welcomes Bryan Jeffries, Outreach Director for the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs and a retired Army veteran who has helped connect more than 5,000 veterans to the benefits they earned. He breaks down the myths that keep veterans from getting what they're owed: why deploying has nothing to do with being a veteran, how the income/means test trap works, what the PACT Act actually covers, and why a past denial is often just the starting line. Brian walks through all four levels of the VA appeals process, shares the outreach story that still sticks with him a Vietnam veteran who went from a 1974 denial to 100% Permanent & Total with six-figure back pay in one afternoon and explains the employer resource fair model that signs veterans up on the clock while saving companies money.

The bottom line: your benefits are yours, you earned them, and help is free. Never pay a company that "guarantees" a rating accredited VSOs like Eagle Ops, ODVA, the American Legion and VFW do it at no cost.

Connect with Eagle Ops and the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs, or find an accredited agent in your state at va.gov.

We'll meet you at the next Rally Point!

In this episode of the Rally Point Podcast, Eagle Ops co-founder Jessica Shepherd shares the deeply personal story behind Eagle Ops and the realities many veterans and military families face after service.

Jessica opens up about watching her husband transition out of the Marine Corps, the loss of military brotherhood, and the emotional impact of helping her Vietnam veteran father navigate the VA system after decades of silence.

This episode is about connection, healing, purpose, and why no veteran should walk the journey home alone.

Topics include:

• Military transition
• Veteran isolation
• VA disability claims
• Vietnam veterans
• Family support
• Building community after service
• The origin story of Eagle Ops

Learn more at: https://eagleops.org