Gary Sinise

So I felt like I was kind of a little bit of a bridge between

I could go to the war zones and I could go see what people do and train with the special forces, see what they actually do, and then come back and talk about it and let people know how fortunate we are that we have such exceptional people serving our country.

And so somebody like me is saying that kind of stuff.

I mean, some people paid attention.

Others probably thought it was, you know, it wasn't what they wanted to hear.

But I felt like that's my role.

My role is to, I have a role to play here in supporting the folks that are serving out there.

And it turned into a full-time thing.

Well, after September 11, like I said, I just felt heartbroken and crushed by that.

And I wanted to do something.

I wanted to get involved.

And so what do you do?

I had been involved a little bit with the Disabled American Veterans Organization because of Forrest Gump.

And I'd been supporting the DAV for a little while.

But how do I support our active duty folks that are now deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq and we're in a war now, you know, and they're getting hurt and they're getting killed and families are losing loved ones and people are really banged up.

You know, they need some support.

So one of the first things I did was contact the USO and just say, hey, I want to go on a trip.

And it's funny, I've told this story before, but I left some messages on their machine.

I called the USO and said, I'm Gary Sinise.

I want to go on a tour.