Gary Sinise Foundation

Her name is Kristen Campsnyder.

And Kristen joined the Gary Sinise Foundation in May of 2014, bringing with her a profound dedication to service, deeply rooted in her upbringing in the military family.

Her father proudly served 22 years in the Air Force.

Her call to serve was magnified following the September 11th attacks, leading her to an unexpected turn from a college path with an Air Force ROTC scholarship to enlisting in the United States Marine Corps as a combat correspondent.

Kristen's career advanced as she was selected for the coveted position of crew chief, participating in critical missions in combat zones during operations enduring freedom, with numerous deployments extending across Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand.

After her service, she pursued higher education at Belmont University, earning a bachelor's degree in corporate communications with a minor in biology.

Her transition to the Gary Sinise Foundation is a continuation of her commitment to supporting her fellow servicemen and women.

Inspired by her lifelong friend and Vietnam veteran, Robert Harry Harrison, whose final words to her, do great things, resonated through her work every day at the foundation.

Starting January 1st, 2027, in Phoenix, Chris will run a 50K, which is 31.1 miles, every single day for a year around the perimeter of America.

His wife Melanie and their two young kids will be with him, and he will be raising money and awareness for four causes: male breast cancer awareness, Care Net, the Gary Sinise Foundation, and Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

In our conversation, we talk about why self-leadership comes first, and how keeping your word to yourself builds the foundation of trust.

Number two, moving from fear to mission by pairing an expert's vision with an amateur's actions.

They, an argument could be made that some of those guys knew me a lot better than my, uh, actual genetic family.

The, the one thing I, I discovered was the, like, it, it's one thing when the operators go to war, um, but where I, I was really blown away, I work with the Gary Sinise Foundation a lot, and, uh-

Yeah

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Yeah, so 9-11 in New York this past week was such a – it was a beautiful ceremony.

I happened to be down there on behalf of the Gary Sinise Foundation.

We were serving heroes.

We were given the honor of serving – the Port Authority Police Department, who lost so many on 9-11.

Actor and advocate Gary Sinise is the executive producer and narrator of the documentary, which premieres tonight.

He's also the founder, president, and chairman of the Gary Sinise Foundation.

I'm, uh, one of the executive producers on this, and the group of Vietnam veterans, 10 Vietnam veterans, went, uh, back to Vietnam, uh, courtesy of Veterans United, who, um, of course, since they were doing this, they wanted to document this o- on film.

And it's, it's a remarkably powerful documentary that I have the privilege of narrating and being an, an executive producer on.

Making that transition from being in combat every day to, to, uh, just coming home and going to the drugstore or g- stopping by Walgreens or whatever it is and, and just living your life.

So it can be, it can be very difficult.

At the Gary Sinise Foundation, we have, we have a, uh, documentary film at the Gary Sinise Foundation as well called Brothers After War, and it's the follow-up film to a movie that we did years ago called Brothers at War, where, um, my buddy Jake Rademacher took a camera with him, and his two brothers were serving in Iraq, and he was able to embed with some of those units over there.

And then we decided years later, let's follow up with some of the, some of the warriors that we meet in that first film and see how they're doing now.

You likely know him from CSI: New York or Apollo 13 or Forrest Gump.

He's also a musician, and in 2011, he established the Gary Sinise Foundation to help support and advocate for veterans.

Gary's son, McCanna Anthony Sinise, who was also known as Mac, was an avid drummer and worked with Gary at the foundation.

Mac was diagnosed with a rare cancer called chordoma in 2018, the same year that Gary's wife, Moira Harris, was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer.

Yet there were a lot of things to be thankful for and to be grateful for, and those blessings, they, they keep you going.

You gotta hang on to those, and you gotta keep, keep it in perspective.

Through this veterans work that I do at the Gary Sinise Foundation-

Which is extraordinary what you've done.

And he was just a proud Merchant Marine, always at a couple different events, always honoring the veterans in such a beautiful, powerful way.

Luckily, just a few years ago, the Gary Sinise Foundation and World War II Museum hosted him and many of the World War II veterans, one of the great heroic merchant marines.

And just how sad that he has just passed away.

I just got word from a mutual friend, Sheila, who is great.

And what he said is that he now, um, speaks at many colleges, and there isn't, there isn't an event, unfortunately, where a college kid will get up and claim that this is an, was an inside government hoax.

And, uh, the groans in the room, uh, you know, of a packed house of many, uh, first responders, Gary Sinise was the narrator, so many people were there from the Gary Sinise Foundation, and it, it, it was just a depressing reality that he is out in the field in these colleges, and that generation, many think that this was an inside job.

And he said, "The way I answer it is absolutely not.

I want to be very clear.