#193: Progressive Traumatic Brain Injury - Silver Star Spouse Bianca Baldwin and Silver Star Mother Fran Wesseling

Service is an honor and a burden carried by more than just those who don the Green Beret. Service is borne by the family that stands in the shadows every step of the way. Through training, deployments, uncertainty, the highest highs and the lowest lows, it’s the family that waits for their Green Beret to return. From the 2nd Annual Stars and Stripes Classic https://greenberetfoundation.org/stars-and-stripes-classic/, Fran Racioppi https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisracioppijr/ sat down with Bianca Baldwin https://www.linkedin.com/in/bianca-b-a5a953287/ and Fran Wesseling https://greenberetfoundation.org/board-of-directors-advisors/, the spouse and mother of Major Darren Baldwin; a Green Beret who came home from combat, but was never the same. Darren’s journey began at the United States Military Academy, where he played lacrosse and built the foundation of discipline, teamwork, and commitment that would carry him into Special Forces. During a deployment, Darren was forced to return home early due to what initially seemed like minor health issues. Further evaluation revealed lesions on his brain, marking the beginning of a long and uncertain fight. Diagnosed with Progressive Traumatic Brain Injury, Bianca and Fran answered a family’s hardest call to service. They shared with me the critical role a family plays in the success of a Green Beret, why strength is important, and how caregiving gives hope to the wounded and their loved ones. Darren passed away from his combat-related illness, and to honor his life, Bianca and Fran carry forward his legacy through the MAJ(R) Darren Baldwin Silver Star Families Support Fund https://greenberetfoundation.org/darren-baldwin-fund/ and through the support of the Green Beret Foundation, ensuring that other families will never fight alone. This episode is about the service of a family during, and after that of their Green Beret. HIGHLIGHTS 0:00 Introduction1:51 Welcome to the Stars & Stripes Classic3:38 Who was MAJ Darren Baldwin10:14 Silver Star Families Fund15:02 Progressive Traumatic Brain Injury22:20 Resources Available QUOTES “Both of my boys slept with a lacrosse stick.”“He had a dedication and grit that goes beyond most.”“Ultimately deeply grateful that his legacy and memory lives on.”“It was like trying to make a right of a wrong.”“That’s kind of how our story started and my story as a caregiver.”“I was always his wife but became his 24/7 caregiver.”“The vast majority of people, including the military, don’t even know what Silver Star families are.”“The fund provides all kinds of medical equipment and new technologies.”“It’s difficult and thankless work to be a caregiver.” The Jedburgh Podcast is brought to you by OneBrief https://www.onebrief.com/; enabling military leaders to make innovative, informed and deliberate decisions faster than ever before. Superhuman command wins wars. Follow the Jedburgh Podcast https://www.instagram.com/jedburghpodcast/ and the Green Beret Foundation https://www.instagram.com/greenberetfoundation/ on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform https://pod.link/1558608802, read on our website https://greenberetfoundation.org/the-jedburgh-podcast/, and watch the full video version on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@jedburghpodcast as we show why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Service is an honor and a burden carried by more than just those who don the Green Beret. Service is borne by the family that stands in the shadows every step of the way. Through training, deployments, uncertainty, the highest highs and the highest lows, it's a family that waits for their Green Beret to return. From the second annual Stars in Stripes Classic, I sat down with Bianca Baldwin and Fran Westlin, the spouse and mother of Major Darren Baldwin, a Green Beret who came home from combat but was never the same. Darren's journey began at the United States Military Academy where he played lacrosse and built the foundation of discipline, teamwork, and commitment that would carry him into the Special Forces. During a deployment, Darren was forced to return home early to what initially seemed like minor health issues.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Further evaluation revealed lesions on his brain, marking the beginning of a long and uncertain fight. Diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, Bianca and Fran answered a family's hardest call to service. They shared with me the critical role a family plays in the success of the Green Beret, why strength is important, and how caregiving gives hope to the wounded and their loved ones. Darren later passed away from his combat-related illness. And to honor his life, Bianca and Fran carry forward his legacy through the Darren Baldwin Fund and through the support of the Green Beret Foundation, ensuring that other families will never fight alone. This episode is about the service of a family during and after that of their Green Beret. The Jed Burke Podcast is brought to you by One Brief, enabling military leaders to

• 1:29Speaker 00

  make innovative, informed, and deliberate decisions faster than ever before. Superhuman Command wins wars. Follow the Jed Burke Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform, read on our website, and watch the full video version on YouTube as we show you why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge.

• 1:50Fran Racioppi?

  Fran, Bianca, welcome to the Jedberg Podcast.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Thank you for having us.

• 1:55Fran Racioppi?

  So we're back, second annual Stars and Stripes Classic. This time, we're no longer in Foxborough, but we're down in south of Philadelphia. We're at Subaru Park and we're hours away. Game's under the lights tonight as our Green Beret Foundation, Green Berets take on the Navy SEAL Foundation, Navy SEALs, and what I think is going to be an epic battle. The games seem to have gotten a lot faster, the teams have gotten younger. But really what's important is we're here not only to really commemorate and celebrate this rivalry, but we're also here to honor the sport of lacrosse and bring awareness to what our Green Berets and what our Navy SEALs are doing, not only for our respective service branches in the Army and the Navy, but for America writ large.

• 2:39Fran Racioppi?

  And to get out, we bring in a helicopter, we bring over the special operations recruiting battalion behind me over here, and we want to really show the youth of America what it means to serve at an elite level. And what, when you hear the term special operations, you hear what is a Green Beret? What is a Navy SEAL? They get to see it, they get to experience it. You two are both intimately familiar with what it means to serve, because you have served. You've served through your son, your husband Darren, who was a member of my alma mater, 10th Special Forces Group, who passed away from combat-related injuries, and you've continued to serve.

• 3:20Fran Racioppi?

  Fran, on the board of Green Beret Foundation, and Bianca, your really amazing support to so many of the programs in the foundation and carrying on his legacy and making sure that caregivers are taken care of. And so I want to talk about that. I want to talk about what it means to be here today. We got to start with, who was Darren?

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Well, he was my son, obviously, and a twin brother, and grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and became enamored with the sport of lacrosse. In the Midwest, they really hadn't had it too long, but he had a coach that brought it to central Ohio, and he was in sixth. And I'll never forget his coach said, if you want to become a good lacrosse player, you have to do what the Urocoy Indians did. As soon as they had a son, they gave him a lacrosse stick to sleep with. So both of my boys slept with a lacrosse stick in sixth grade. Darren went on and had a very successful career in high school, made all state, really

• 4:21Speaker 02

  was an incredible midi. And his brother was equally good, but Darren had a determination that even the lacrosse coach at West Point noticed. And he had quite a few opportunities to go on to college to play lacrosse. But at 17, he said, you know, Mom, how many kids my age get to go to a military academy? And so that's what he did. And he loved the sport. And Coach Joe told me, he remembers, he was an assistant coach when Darren was there, said, I never saw a kid so determined to do well. And because he was from the Midwest and the majority of players in those days were all East Coast, North Carolina, they

• 5:02Speaker 02

  stuck a John Deere picture on his dorm door and said, are you still driving that John Deere? So he never lived that down. But it's been a legacy in our family. His twin brother went on to play at Purdue. His nephews played in high school. And it's a very meaningful sport for us. They played football, but we still love lacrosse better.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  And going back to who was Darren, obviously, I met Darren in Germany. He was stationed there as a field artillery officer. And I went to the university there and, you know, we met over there. Despite an amazing athlete and a very dedicated service member at that point, officer, he had the cheesiest humor. He was one good looking man. He was very kind, very loyal, very just proud of his country and his service. And he loved his family. He loved his friends. And he had a

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Dedication and grit that goes beyond most. I'm gonna go with the average person. And so, fast forward, ultimately, when he was in Kosovo with Filitari, he was exposed for the first time to green berets there. And that kind of put it in his mind that that was gonna be what he wanted to pursue. And then obviously, after nine eleven, we were dating for right around nine month. Not only did he decide that I was gonna be the one, but also it was more than, you know, I mean, clear decided

• 6:44Speaker 03

  that he's gonna pursue a career within the special forces community. And that's exactly what he did. So athlete on the field, warrior in the battlefield. And he, you know, he loves his brothers, the brotherhood. As a vest pointer, he loved his, you know, classmates. Just all around, great husband and yeah, he was just one of a kind.

• 7:14Fran Racioppi?

  And his legacy lives through this game. Cause his number, number twenty-two is on the uniform. And so what does that mean when you see his number on the uniform?

• 7:25Speaker 03

  Ah, gosh. So I just recently had a conversation explaining to someone the specific game. Everybody's very much familiar with the Army Navy game. Football, of course, you know, that's the big to do with vest point and the Naval Academy. And I explained the jersey and how the number twenty-two is on one of the sleeves and is there to honor and remember Darren. And that was his number. It was also his favorite number. Like, literally, he considered that his lucky number. And seeing it and then have, you know, that snippet of his story and who he was.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Well, it's, there's a, you know, it's a bittersweet, obviously. But ultimately deeply grateful that his legacy and his memory lives on. Cause there's a lot of story behind that number and his name.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  And as a family, he has a nephew in Colorado playing lacrosse his second year in high school, and he has that number 22 on his jersey. It's something that will be forever in our family, a special place in our hearts. And as I told the players last night that I got to meet, I said, he's here in spirit, you know, and having that number on for our family means a lot.

• 8:53Fran Racioppi?

  When faced with a challenge, Green Berets adapt, overcome, and keep moving forward. Now's your chance to stand with them. Join the 1952 Society with a monthly gift of just $19.52 to provide critical medical devices for wounded, ill, and injured Green Berets. Your support fuels their recovery, helping them return to duty or continue serving their communities. A Green Berets mission never stops. Neither should our support. Join the 1952 Society today and stand with those who stand for us.

• 9:25Fran Racioppi?

  So we've been fortunate on the Jedburgh Podcast over the last couple of years to be able to sit down and have some really tough conversations with family members and spouses and parents who've lost their Green Berets. And it's never an easy conversation. And most recently, we sat down with General Gil Ferguson and Delia Munoz, and we talked about the notification process. And what does that mean when you're sitting there at your house early one morning and someone knocks on your door to tell you that your dad or your spouse or son has been lost? Your story's a little different because when we deal with illness and combat-related illness, some people's lives get turned upside

• 10:09Fran Racioppi?

  down in the snap of a finger when that doorbell rings. Other people have to be involved with it over a longer protracted period of time. I don't think anybody can ever say if there's a worse because it's all bad and it's all hard, no matter what situation you're in. But there's a caregiver aspect to this. You had to live that. And so from your perspective, because you've both been so involved in the development of the Silver Star Family Fund with Green Beret Foundation and the support to caregivers. Can you talk about that support? Talk about the fund and your experience as a caregiver?

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Bianca has an incredible story and we, as a family, give her such credit. We've never seen such dedication. And I used to be a nurse many years ago. Briefly, I'll tell you about the Green Beret Foundation, Major Darren Baldwin Silver Star Family Support Fund. When Darren was first injured, I had to do something. It was like trying to make a right of a wrong. And I said to my husband, we were both golfers. Let's try to raise some money for the Green Beret Foundation. And he said, well, how are you going to do that? Well, I had some experience and I said, let's do a golf outing. Well, in 10 years, the golf outing grew from a golf outing to a major gala the night before,

• 11:34Speaker 02

  to another event, to a 5K race, a bourbon event that we have in the spring of every year. And in 10 years, we have raised over $4 million for the Green Beret Foundation. Now, this is in a city from a tri-state area in Ohio. This is the greater Cincinnati and Kentucky area that did not know what a Green Beret was when we started this in 2015. And we bring the Green Berets in so they can meet and we've done static displays. We've tried to educate them and we have a passionate following of supporters that, event or not, they're donating to the Green Beret Foundation. This is their charity of choice.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  So as a family, and I'm going to let her talk about caregiving because she was it. As a family, it helps us to realize they will never forget Darren. His legacy of goodness and kindness, as Bianca described, lives on because of that fund. And the foundation can tell you many, many, not only Green Berets, but their spouses, their children are being helped by that fund.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. What is it like to be a caregiver? What's the story? Obviously, Darren got, he was in 10th Group now, in 10th Maine, which is in Fort Carson, 2nd Battalion. He was with the detachment Alpha 061. And on his second tour to Iraqi, Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was exposed to two improvised explosive devices. And it was back to back. And the second one was ultimately where we found, like over a year later, that something more had happened. And then it took us four years to get the incident report. And that's when we knew that he was indeed unconscious.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  So that was the moment our life changed. As a very young married couple, we were only married at that point, three years. He had just turned 30, I had just turned 28 when that happened. But it was not, to your point, the catastrophic injury, where you go, you know, he would have had to be med vac'd or anything. I did not get, thank God, I'm very grateful for that. Not the knock on the door or the, you know, doorbell ring. What I did get was a phone call from Red Detachment, that there was an incident, but Darren was okay. And he would call me, and he did. But little did I, the one, we didn't know that everything had changed in that moment in 2005, in March.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  So fast forward, Darren in 06, he's leaving 10th Group. He's being assigned to Fort Bragg. And had to come home from his third deployment early. And he already had issues. There were minor, mild problems, like the being off balance. A little bit unusual for him, like, like a short temper, which was not Darren at all. And so he finally got checked out before he left Fort Carson. And then we were sent to Walter Reed, because they found so many lesions or scars on his brain that they thought he might have cancer or some sort of infection.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  But that's kind of how our story started and my story as a caregiver. So this is about 06. Now we're in Fort Bragg and we don't really know, there's no diagnosis. It's just kind of like fishing in the dark. And You know, you kind of wonder what's going on. And then Darren, for him, was like, he was afraid of his career being uprooted and end. This was what he loved. So I became his advocate. And then over the course of, you know, 15 years, as we now find out, no, it's not multiple sclerosis. It's not ALS. It's not Parkinson's.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  It's not all these different labels that, you know, the military was kind of military medical professionals were kind of going with. And then turns out it was, at this point, progressive traumatic brain injury. Often I get asked if I'm angry. There was a time. But at this point, I also know they didn't know what they didn't know. This is early on in the war. This is oh five. The Iraq war began in oh three. And so they just didn't know. And

• 16:13Speaker 02

  I might add, giving her credit, a tremendous credit. She was his advocate and she fought hard to get that diagnosed.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  And that's exactly what I was gonna say. I became his advocate because Darren had no idea how to do that. You guys are not trained for this. Green Berets are not trained to see doctors all the time and question them, especially now that then they end up being like higher ranking. So I'm like, oh no, because he could never, because it was brain injury. And I would ask him, what, what happened? What did you say? What did so and so? I don't know more. I don't remember. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna come with you from here on out to every single medical appointment. And so I did. And I don't care about ranks. I'm the spouse. So I questioned them and I would write everything down.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  And it was a fight because the missing link for four years, because it was until 2009, when we finally got the incident report. And now we knew that it's brain injury. And it was all based, oh, he lost consciousness. The thing is, they saw so many, you know, catastrophic injuries that the enclosed brain injury was just not understood. And then if you think about football, the NFL really kind of started to kick that into gear. And so we learned from them in a way, and they learned from us. And, you know, blast injuries, all those situations that our service members were exposed to, especially within the special operations community.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  But so over the years, over 15 years, as Darren's condition progressed and declined, I progressed more and more into the caregiver. I was always his wife, but it became a 24/7. He ended up being wheelchair-bound. He ended up, you know, like all of his dailies, he wasn't able to do. He lost his speech. So I had to, you know, kind of, he was like my study project all the time. And I could understand and understand what was happening to him, just watching his every move and facial expressions. And I pretty much became his able-bodied because he simply couldn't.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  So having this, you know, really short, because it's a long story, but just to have this outline over the 15 years, me becoming from the military wife to the advocate and more and more of the caregiver, and you continue to be as advocate. And somehow you become the skilled person in all these different medical fields without ever having had the official training. So going into the Green Bray Foundation and having that Silver Star Families Support Fund, there's two aspects for me. It's a little bit nostalgic because it's in Darren's honor and memory. And he was one of the very first Special Forces Green Brays that benefited from the

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Green Bray Foundation in 2009 after Aaron Anderson founded it. So that's kind of the nostalgic. But having it named not only after him, but also dedicated to Silver Stars, Silver Star Families, I should say, because I don't want people to confuse it with the, you know, the, the award that people get or service member get. It's significant.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  Because a lot of people, the vast majority to include within the military, don't even know what Silver Star families are. And I'm gonna be honest, I didn't figure it out, I didn't know until 2020. For whatever reason, I was Googling and I'm like, what is Silver Star Families of America? I never heard of it. This is like how many years after being a caregiver? And here I stumbled across it and it's an official day. Even on May 1st, it's Silver Star Families Day. And I'm like, huh, this is us. It's the families of active duty members or, you know, retired veterans that served

• 20:23Speaker 03

  and have combat injury, service-connected injury, illness, wounds unseen and seen, but also dying. And it also includes their family members that more often than not become their caregivers. Oftentimes it's a spouse. Actually, many times it's also children and then obviously parents. But the impact of the war coming home, and we were in a 20-year-long war. It's also realizing that Darren was one of the first, like the tip of the iceberg. And there's more to come and this number is gonna grow. And there's thousands of us just post 9/11.

• 21:08Speaker 03

  We're not even talking prior to. The other significance is that having this kind of fund acknowledges the existence of Silver Star families. Because a lot of those families, the caregivers and the veteran or the service member, they feel disconnected and they feel isolated. And so they're kind of in the dark. And to me, I'm so proud of the Greenway Foundation that we have it. Because obviously it's also for our community, which is obviously always gonna be the closest to my heart. It's family. It's Darren's legacy.

• 21:45Speaker 03

  Continue to give, paying it forward, even so he paid a high price. But his story continues to be told through other Silver Star families, other veterans that have alike situations. Their spouses becoming caregivers, the huge impact on your emotional, your mental, your physical health, but also the financial burden it has. And people don't see necessarily that, you know, Department of Defense or the Veterans Affairs, Medicare doesn't cover all the treatments, doesn't cover all the rehabilitation that is suggested. Therapies, education for caregivers, you know, Medicare is like teachable.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  But it's a huge burden. So it's just, it's significant to me for nostalgic reason, but it carries on Darren's legacy and it lets us all know that there is a lot of team Baldwin's out there.

• 22:44Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  And a lot of people that feel isolated and they need to be seen because they deserve that.

• 22:50Fran Racioppi?

  So the fund itself provides a number of resources. What are some of the resources that are being provided through the fund to caregivers? In terms of training, financial support?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Mental health is one, yeah, big support for them. Also, you know, the caregivers themselves can have injuries, just back, shoulders. I mean, lifting people, you know, their loved ones. And the fund itself provides all kinds of medical equipments, new technologies. I mean, new treatments for mental health and physical health. And those are the kinds of things that we know Darren would be so proud to have his name associated with as along with Bianca because they lived without it. She literally battled to get what his needs were beyond what the GBF could provide them

• 23:42Speaker 02

  from a medical standpoint. So we encourage people, if you can, donate any amount. It's going to be used in the right way and you'll have a great give back.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  But I want to say the beauty for Darren, what was easier for us because it was early on. You know, we had like the Wounded Warrior Project back then. There were certain organizations and charities out there.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  But in 08 and 09, a lot of new charities came online with the wars going on in Afghanistan and Iraq. And so we were kind of the, in the beginning, so a lot of these charities were brought to us. They came online, so to speak. And then we were already in touch with the Special Operations Command Care Coalition back in the day. Don't ask me what they're called now. People need to stop, like, I'm an OG. We need to just stop renaming.

• 24:37Fran Racioppi?

  I'm trying to remember what they're actually called, right?

• 24:39Speaker 03

  Warrior Care. Warrior First or something like, something like that. Like I said, I'm an OG. So, but we were in touch with them. And because of that, the Green Beret Foundation then got our information and they came to us. And this is something that doesn't happen to caregivers anymore. So we had a lot of support, even from Darren's command groups back then. At that point, they kind of were like, maybe it's a one-off. And then it turned out, oh, no, this is going to be one of many. So we had all that support. And that is always going to be one of the greatest blessings to me. Because I also know a lot of the families

• 25:21Speaker 03

  now that are going through caregiving and medical needs, don't necessarily have that. And that's where my advocacy kind of goes into. I want them to be seen. I want the demographic to be known that they exist. Because it's a very large group.

• 25:38Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  So.

• 25:40Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah, and it's difficult and thankless work to be a caregiver.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  It's this, I always tell people, there's nothing glamorous about it. This is not Hollywood. You know, the hospital stays on that fun.

• 25:54Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  I don't miss any Code Blue and I don't miss Rapid Response. Actually, I feel like I have a post-traumatic stress situation going to hospitals now.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  And in the same breath, I would not change it for the world. And I know so many other caregivers that feel the same. It's worth it because it's kind of you're fighting the good fight too. But having these support funds that we have with the Green Beret Foundation, it just makes life a little bit easier. And also helps that you, you as a caregiver and you as a injured either or ill service member or veteran, that you still matter and your service matters. And it's just, you know, it's something that I think is fairly easy for us to give back,

• 26:48Speaker 03

  to help them to be seen again and that they don't have to be isolated. So I'm grateful for this fund. I'm grateful it's called after the Silver Star families. And I really hope people wants to hear it, look it up. If you see a wounded veteran, ask. They're more than likely willing to tell their story and support however you can.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Talking about stories, I think that was what was significant in helping us raise money in Cincinnati for the Green Beret Foundation. They knew of Darren's story. They knew of Bianca. And that really was a touch point that people knew. And when we named the fund, when GBF named the fund after him, that just really made a significant impact in donors. You know, that they had something tangible. And I'm on the board of the foundation and we know that the need, there isn't a major crisis where there's a lot of acute need, but the mental health is really, real.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  And it's not only the Green Beret, it's the spouse, it's the caregiver and it's the kids. And that's what's really making a difference and an impact.

• 28:05Fran Racioppi?

  Yep. And the foundation's put forth a number of initiatives, a number of programs to support that across the board, and the newest one being the Task Force Tatanka Initiative, which launches here now.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:18Fran Racioppi?

  And really what we're talking about is opportunity from need where Green Berets of all generations are coming to the foundation, they're talking about what their challenge is, where they need support, and the foundation's not saying, well, we only have programs that do these three things, these five things. They're saying, we're gonna go find an answer, and we're gonna help you, and we're gonna, if we have to craft something brand new, well, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna make sure that we continue that support.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:45Fran Racioppi?

  So getting out there and spreading that message is important.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 28:48Fran Racioppi?

  And you've been two amazing advocates for the foundation, for Darren's legacy, for this game where we get a chance to honor him and remember the game that he loved. And I thank you so much for taking the time to share your story, share Darren's story, and continue the great work that you're doing.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Thank you for the opportunity.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Awesome. Yep.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  And so Army beat Navy.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 29:13Fran Racioppi?

  As an objective journalist, I'm not supposed to say that, but we need the Green Berets to take it home this year.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  I think so too, because they held the better jersey this year.

• 29:20Fran Racioppi?

  And they do, and I just had the coaches on, so I had to be careful on that one. But yeah, we gotta get it done. Thank you.

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  American Jedbergs went on to form the Foundation of the United States Special Forces and the Special Activities Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Thanks for listening to the Jedburgh Podcast, an official program of the Green Beret Foundation. I'm your creator and host, Fran Rychowi. Join us next week for a new episode on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check us out on YouTube for full episodes, highlights, and other long and short form content. If you like what you heard, give us a like and leave a review. Follow the Jedburgh Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X or Threads. Send your comments and inquiries to [email protected]. As former members of Special Operations Forces, the Jedburgh Media Channel, and the Green Beret Foundation remain committed to supporting all generations of US Army Special

• 30:12Speaker 04

  Forces and their families. Thanks for joining us on this episode. How you prepare today determines success tomorrow.