Veterans Breakfast Club

Steven Grayhm on Making Sheepdog, the Movie

In this Veterans Breakfast Club livestream, we sit down with filmmaker Steven Grayhm to talk about Sheepdog, an independent feature film that takes a hard, honest look at combat trauma, recovery, and the long road home. Grayhm not only stars in the film, but also wrote, produced, and directed it—an unusual level of authorship that reflects how personal the project is.

Sheepdog centers on Calvin Cole (Grayhm), a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who is court-ordered into treatment and placed under the care of a VA trauma therapist-in-training (played by Madsen), who is juggling her clinical work with night shifts at a diner to pay for school. Calvin’s fragile attempt to hold himself together is further tested when his father-in-law, a retired Vietnam veteran (Curtis Hall), appears at his door fresh out of prison. As Calvin’s instinct to run from his past collapses, the film traces how accountability, compassion, and hard-earned trust can open a path toward healing.

Shot on location in Western Massachusetts, Sheepdog aims to lift the veil on post-traumatic stress and the veteran suicide crisis, while also focusing on the often-overlooked idea of post-traumatic growth. Rather than offering easy answers, the film shows the physical and psychological consequences of trauma—and the slow, uneven work of recovery—through grounded performances and lived-in settings. Film critic Tony Toscana called it “one of the best films of the year.”

We’ll ask Grayhm about how Sheepdog came to be: years spent listening to veterans’ stories, studying trauma and VA treatment models, and working closely with veterans and clinicians to get the details right. He’ll reflect on why he felt compelled to tell this story himself, why authenticity matters more than spectacle, and what it takes to bring an independently made, veteran-centered film from script to screen.

This livestream will explore the making of Sheepdog, the responsibilities of telling veterans’ stories on film, and what cinema can—and cannot—do when it comes to understanding trauma, recovery, and the complicated work of coming home.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

Gil Ferrey’s Berlin Wall Story, 1961

Before he ever flew gunships in Vietnam or logged 900 combat hours over the Central Highlands, Gil Ferrey had already taken a remarkable detour into the frontlines of the Cold War. In the fall of 1961—just three weeks after construction began on the Berlin Wall—Gil, then a 20-year-old American student studying in East Berlin, attempted to help a young woman escape to the West. He and a friend, Victor Pankey, hid her in the trunk of their car and made a run for the border.

They didn’t make it. East German border guards arrested them at the crossing.

What followed was four months in a state security prison, weeks of solitary confinement, a trial with a predetermined outcome, and an unexpected release reportedly granted as a personal “act of mercy” by Walter Ulbricht. The New York Times covered the case closely in 1962: two young Californians imprisoned for an act they considered morally right, even if East German law judged otherwise. When they emerged, shaggy-haired but unbroken, both said they’d been treated well. But the experience left its mark.

Gil will tell the story of how a semester abroad in a sealed-off city became a collision with Communist state power and a firsthand look at the making of the Cold War’s most visible boundary.

But Ferrey’s story doesn’t end at Checkpoint Charlie. After returning home, finishing his studies at Claremont Men’s College, and earning his commission, he went on to serve as an Army aviator. He trained at Fort Wolters and Fort Rucker, earned his wings in December 1964, and served first in Korea with the 7th Aviation Battalion, then stateside with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.

In Vietnam, Gill flew Hueys and Hiller 23G “Raven” scout helicopters, logging 900 combat hours.

This is one of those rare veteran stories that opens a window not just onto a war, but onto an entire era.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

Veterans Open Conversation

Join the Veterans Breakfast Club for an open and wide-ranging virtual conversation about the military experience, past and present.

We believe every veteran has a story to tell and wisdom to share. This event is a chance to listen, learn, and connect with others who understand the unique bonds and challenges of military service. If you have something on your mind—whether a personal memory, a question, or a topic you think deserves attention—we encourage you to bring it to the conversation. Veterans are also invited to email Shaun Hall at shaun@veteransbreakfastclub.org with any specific topics or issues they’d like to discuss.

The Veterans Breakfast Club’s mission is to create communities of listening around veterans and their stories, and our Open Conversations are one of the most dynamic ways we do that. These sessions are often wide-ranging, emotional, funny, and thought-provoking, providing a welcoming space where everyone’s voice is valued.

This event is free and open to all. To join the conversation live on Zoom, please use this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6402618738. Or tune in on Facebook or YouTube at 7:00pm ET on June 9. Whether you have something to share or simply want to listen and learn, we welcome you to be part of the conversation!

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

USS Pueblo Veteran and North Korean POW Steven Woelk

One week before the Tet Offensive of 1968, a small, unarmed Navy intelligence ship called the USS Pueblo was attacked and captured by North Korea. The seizure of the Pueblo became its own crisis running parallel to Tet, trapping 82 American sailors in a struggle for survival that lasted nearly a year.

One of those sailors was 20-year-old Steven Woelk from Kansas. On our upcoming VBC livestream, Steven will join us to share his remarkable firsthand story, now told in full in his soon-to-be-released memoir, Pig Fat Soup: Surviving My Pueblo Prisoner of War Journey.

When cannon rounds started ripping into the lightly armed spy ship, Woelk was below decks with three shipmates, frantically trying to burn classified material before it could be captured. The smoke gave them away. A North Korean round tore through their space, killing Woelk’s friend and leaving Woelk himself gravely wounded.

Because of those wounds, he became the last sailor to leave the Pueblo. Carried off the ship after Commander Lloyd Bucher surrendered to prevent further slaughter, Woelk then went ten full days without medical treatment. When surgery finally came, it was brutal. Shrapnel, bone fragments, and his testicles were removed without anesthesia. He still has no idea how he survived without infection.

Woelk spent forty-four days in a North Korean hospital, which spared him some of the savage beatings his crewmates endured. But nothing shielded him from “hell week,” the torture that followed once the captors discovered the crew’s defiant middle-finger gesture wasn’t, in fact, a friendly Hawaiian greeting. “You pray you’re strong enough to resist,” he later said, “but you never know until you face that reality.” There were long stretches of boredom, hunger, and fear, punctuated by sudden terror, never knowing whether the next moment would bring a beating, execution, or, by some miracle, release.

Release finally came two days before Christmas 1968.

For his wounds and captivity, Woelk received two Purple Hearts and the POW Medal.

The Pueblo remains the only U.S. Navy vessel still held by a foreign nation, displayed by North Korea as a trophy and propaganda exhibit.

Steven Woelk has spent much of his life ensuring that the Pueblo is not forgotten. His memoir, Pig Fat Soup, offers the most detailed and candid account he’s ever shared—one that moves from the chaos of the attack to the freezing bunkrooms of the “Barn,” the POW camp where the crew endured nearly a year of captivity.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

The True Story of Military Contractors and US Mail Delivery in Afghanistan

Edward Ford and Alan Chiasson came to Afghanistan with long résumés in uniform and out. Ford was a Force Recon Marine with combat tours in the Gulf War, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan before moving into high-end security contracting. Chiasson was a Navy Hospital Corpsman and Texas paramedic who’d spent years providing high-risk medical support on PSD and convoy details in Iraq and Afghanistan. When the private security firm SOC (Special Operations Consulting) expanded its mobile operations in Afghanistan, both men ended up on armored Ford F-550 gun trucks running some of the most dangerous roads in the country.

At first, their teams hauled critical supplies—ammo, fuel, food, equipment—to isolated Special Forces sites and small outposts the regular military couldn’t cover. Then SOC picked up the Department of Defense contract to move something that sounded almost ordinary: the mail. Ford, Chiasson, and their teammates suddenly became the unofficial “Pony Express” of Afghanistan, hauling letters and care packages from Kabul and Bagram along the notorious Ring Road to places like Ghazni, Sharana, Orgun-E, and tiny dirt compounds with nothing but Hesco walls and a few tents. Troops took the mail for granted; few ever thought about the chain of convoys and gun trucks that got a letter from a stateside mailbox to a cot in Kandahar.

Postcards Through Hell tells that story from the inside. The “Pony Express” ran four teams in a three-on, one-off rotation so three could be on the road at any time. One team took the long hauls, another ran the shorter Kabul ring route while standing QRF, and a third trained, refit, and got ready to swap in. A “good” day might mean an 18-hour, thousand-kilometer push with no major incidents—what they jokingly called the “Thousand Kilometer Club.” Most days weren’t like that. They drove flat-bottom F-550s with level-seven armor and twin turrets, strong against small arms but vulnerable to anything placed directly underneath. Once the Taliban figured out that weakness, a well-buried mine or IED under the chassis could flip a truck or tear it in half.

The book is anchored in specific days and events. Ford saved incident reports, op orders, and run paperwork; Chiasson kept a journal. Together they rebuilt a timeline that lets them write, “On April 30 we were here; on May 1 this happened,” instead of “sometime that spring.” Around those convoy stories they layer the wider war: the Camp Chapman suicide bombing; Special Forces “kill teams” at outposts like Ramrod; Italian forces paying the Taliban not to attack them, which meant somebody else—often the Pony Express—became the target. They were there when other contractor convoys got hit, when friends died in F-550s blown apart by stacked anti-tank mines, and when gun trucks limped back into Kabul with wounded men inside and burned-out hulks left behind on the road.

Their daily life was built around a simple idea: keep your brothers alive. When they weren’t running missions, they were on QRF. When they weren’t on QRF, they were working out. When they weren’t working out, they were training. They ate together, lived on top of each other in cramped villas and compounds, and used the long Afghan “fighting season”—April through October—to sort out who really belonged there. The easy-sounding mail run weeded people out fast. Some new hires lasted one fighting season, some one mission, some one week. Others stayed for years, until they hit what Ford calls “the wall”—that private moment when you look at a body on a slab, or feel age and accumulated blast damage catching up with you, and decide it’s time to go home.

Postcards Through Hell doesn’t ignore the business side of contracting. Ford and Chiasson talk frankly about companies weighing the cost of vehicle upgrades against death-benefit payouts, replacing seasoned expatriate drivers with cheaper local nationals, and relying on Afghan “expediters” whose loyalties sometimes ran in more than one direction. 

The story doesn’t end when the convoys stop. The contract itself ran, under different companies, into 2016, and Ford and Chiasson had to cut whole chapters from the book because of classified work and units involved. 

At heart, Postcards Through Hell is a book about a very unglamorous, absolutely vital piece of America’s longest war. 

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

Vietnam in War and Peace

Join us for an evening with Colonel Chuck Bechtel, whose new memoir, Sent to War, Returning for Peace: My Reconciliation with the Vietnam War, traces a long soldier’s journey from the jungles of Vietnam to a quiet reckoning half a century later.

Chuck was drafted in 1966, a kid from Pennsylvania who suddenly found himself leading a 43-man infantry platoon with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in 1968–69. His book tells that story—training, combat, fear, loss, and the strange return home to a country that didn’t know what to make of its soldiers. But it also reaches beyond the war. Chuck writes about the decades that followed, the invisible weight so many veterans carried, and the hard work of finding peace in the long after.

A centerpiece of the memoir is his return trip to Vietnam in 2022 with his wife and a small group of veterans organized by Mrs. Lei Williams, whose own life was shaped by the war. That journey—walking old ground with former enemies and longtime friends—became a turning point. The book captures the tenderness, the surprises, and the healing that can happen when you’re finally ready to face the past.

Over thirty-five years in uniform, Chuck rose from Private E-1 to full Colonel, commanded at every level from company to brigade, deployed during Desert Storm, and later played a key role in building the Army’s 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team. His record includes the Bronze Star with “V” for valor, Air Medal, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, Combat Infantry Badge, Legion of Merit, and many more. After retiring, he continued serving as a volunteer Ambassador for Veterans’ Outreach of PA, helping launch Veterans Grove, a 24/7 therapeutic community for unhoused veterans. Ten percent of his book royalties support that mission.

Chuck lives in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with his wife Joan. They have two children and three grandchildren.

This livestream will be a conversation not just about a war, but about what it means to come home from one—and how reconciliation can grow, even decades later. We hope you’ll join us.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

The Battle of Dak To, 1967

Join us for a special Veterans Breakfast Club Monday Night Livestream on November 24 marking the 58th anniversary of the Battle of Dak To, one of the fiercest and bloodiest engagements of the Vietnam War. We’ll be joined by veterans who fought there—men who endured the steep jungle slopes, relentless artillery, and desperate close-quarters combat of the Central Highlands in November 1967. Their firsthand stories will bring to life the courage, chaos, and sacrifice that defined this pivotal and horrific battle.

The Battle of Dak To took place in Kon Tum Province, near the border with Laos, as U.S. Army units—mainly from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, and 1st Cavalry Division—clashed with well-entrenched North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces. For weeks, paratroopers and infantrymen fought for control of jungle-covered ridges like Hill 875, where heavy bombardment turned the forest to ash and cost hundreds of American lives. By the time the battle ended, over 280 Americans were killed and more than 900 wounded, while NVA losses numbered in the thousands. It was a pyrrhic victory that revealed both the extraordinary valor of U.S. troops and the brutal futility of the wider war.

In this livestream, veterans of Dak To will share their memories of combat, loss, and survival—and reflect on what the battle means today, nearly half a century later. We’ll explore the human dimension behind the headlines: the fear, the brotherhood, and the haunting aftermath carried home. Join us for an evening of remembrance and reflection as we honor those who fought at Dak To and keep their stories alive.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

The VBC WWII Tour of Italy, October 17-30, 2026 Part 1

Glenn Flickinger and Todd DePastino discuss the VBC’s WWII Tour of Italy in October 2026, where they will spend 14 days following the path of the Allied forces through one of the most grueling campaigns of World War II. Todd and Glenn will also talk with Italian Campaign expert, 45th Infantry Division Historian Professor David D’Andrea, who will also be joining us on our trip.

We’ll trace the course of the Italian Campaign, beginning with Operation Husky, the massive Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 that opened the road to Europe’s soft underbelly. From the hard-fought landings at Gela and Scoglitti to the urban battles in Palermo and the mountainous defenses near Messina, Sicily tested the courage and coordination of American and British troops.

From there, the campaign moved to mainland Italy, first at Salerno, where American soldiers fought to hold their beachhead against fierce counterattacks, and then up the rugged spine of the Apennines. We’ll visit key battlegrounds of Cassino, where Allied forces waged a costly struggle for control of the ancient Abbey of Monte Cassino, and Anzio, where troops endured months of shelling in a desperate bid to outflank German defenses. The campaign culminated in the liberation of Rome on June 4, 1944, two days before D-Day in Normandy.

Our trip will visit these storied sites—Catania, Syracuse, Agrigento, Palermo, Salerno, Cassino, Anzio, and Rome—accompanied by historians and local guides who will help us connect the landscape to the history that unfolded there. Along the way, we’ll also enjoy the beauty that drew the world to Italy long before and long after the war: the turquoise waters of the Amalfi Coast, the golden temples of Agrigento, and the ancient beauty of Palermo and Rome.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

The Oldest Story: What Homer’s The Iliad Teaches Us About Modern War

For the 250th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, the Veterans Breakfast Club goes deep with Marine Corps veteran and classical scholar Dr. Josh Cannon about the ancient truths of war.

Join this conversation with an  Iraq veteran, anthropologist, and author, whose new book Fatal Second Helen: A Modern Veteran’s Iliad bridges the 2,600-year-old world of Homer’s Iliad with the modern battlefield of Iraq.

Cannon served as an Arabic cryptologic linguist with the Marine Corps from 2000 to 2005, deploying twice to Iraq—first with the invasion in 2003 and again in 2004. After his service, he pursued graduate studies in linguistics and archaeology at the University of Chicago, earning a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Now a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh, Cannon brings both the scholar’s lens and the veteran’s heart to Homer’s tale of rage, loss, and honor.

In Fatal Second Helen, Cannon retells Homer’s epic in clear, vivid prose, weaving in his own combat experiences and reflections on the warrior’s life. It’s a book that asks timeless questions: What draws people to war? What do they bring back from it? And what can ancient heroes like Achilles teach modern warriors about grief, pride, and the search for meaning?

As Cannon writes in his essay “Glorious But Dead—Was It Worth It?”, he has lived the same paradox Homer captured 26 centuries ago: the beauty and the tragedy of battle, the brotherhood and the loss, the impossible attempt to make sense of it all.

This conversation promises to be part literary journey, part war story, and part meditation on how veterans across millennia have wrestled with the same enduring human truths.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

Veterans Open Conversation

Join the Veterans Breakfast Club for an open and wide-ranging virtual conversation about the military experience, past and present.

We believe every veteran has a story to tell and wisdom to share. This event is a chance to listen, learn, and connect with others who understand the unique bonds and challenges of military service. If you have something on your mind—whether a personal memory, a question, or a topic you think deserves attention—we encourage you to bring it to the conversation. Veterans are also invited to email Shaun Hall at shaun@veteransbreakfastclub.org with any specific topics or issues they’d like to discuss.

The Veterans Breakfast Club’s mission is to create communities of listening around veterans and their stories, and our Open Conversations are one of the most dynamic ways we do that. These sessions are often wide-ranging, emotional, funny, and thought-provoking, providing a welcoming space where everyone’s voice is valued.

This event is free and open to all. To join the conversation live on Zoom, please use this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6402618738. Or tune in on Facebook or YouTube at 7:00pm ET on June 9. Whether you have something to share or simply want to listen and learn, we welcome you to be part of the conversation!

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!