All Episodes
Episodes
13 | What We Hand Our Children to Carry (Generational Issues, 2 of 2)
His health didnāt collapse all at once.
It drifted.
Weight gain. Diabetes. Smoking. Alcohol. Injuries. Prescriptions.
One thing stacked on another until, at one point, James weighed more than 400 pounds and landed in...
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12 | Blessings or Curses? (Generational Issues 1 of 2)
HeĀ barely knew his biological father growing up.
To him, the one the family called āBig Jimā was mostly a stranger.
Then came one Christmas visit that James carried with him for decadesā along with one worn-out orange...
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11 | The Man Who Chose Us (Grandpa Lloyd)
Letās meet the most influential man in Jamesā lifeā according to James himselfā¦
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At 14 years old, Lloyd stole his older brotherās birth certificate from a San Antonio orphanageā¦
ā¦and joined the military.
By 16, he...
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10 | Trained to Go to War, but Never Trained to Come Home
James Dickerson came from a long line of warriors.
But growing up, he mostly heard the funny stories.
The cold.
The food.
The strange things soldiers do.
Not the horrors.
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That changed when James went to Bosnia.
In...
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9 | Built from Broken Pieces
James Dickerson had already been through chaos, rehab, crime, drugs, and more than his share of instability before he ever put on a uniform.
Then the two Kathies gave him a choice:
1ļøā£ Leave the house
ORā
2ļøā£ Go to...
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8 | Wherever You Go, There You Are (The Two Kathies, part 1)
A year-long ārehab tourā provided James with something he didnāt have when he left:
An education in drugs, manipulation, and how the wrong crowd operates.
And before long, he put some of it to use.
In this episode of...
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7 | Hell's Angels and Other Kinds of Rescue
As a kid, James gets beaten up by another boy living in an apartment complex filled with Hellās Angels.
His four-foot-something redheaded mother finds outā¦
ā¦ marches straight into the middle of the bikersā¦
ā¦ pounds on...
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6 | The past explains it (even though it doesnāt excuse it)
The story of trauma and chaos and confusion didnāt begin with the military, service dogs, or the battlefield.
It began much earlier.
With a teenage motherā¦
A broken marriageā¦
An abusive stepfatherā¦
Constant military...
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5 | Crashing Into Grace (The Wreck)
Things break.
Sometimes itās people, other times itās place, and in other moments itās situations.
The thing is, wellā¦
Restoration doesnāt always look like a āprecise returnā to what we once had. Many times, grace...
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Bonus | The Waterfall of Grace
We jump all the way ahead in the story and talk about Grace, Jamesā baby girl.
At one point while doing the story capture for the upcoming book, he told me a story about Grace.
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But then I wondered, āIs this REALLY...
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4 | Accumulated Trauma & Compounding Chaos (Billy Dayoc)
Life sometimes hands us big knockout punches. The big blows that put you on that mat.
Sometimes.
Yes, a some of the trauma we encounter is like a TKO. It knocks the breathe out of you and places you on the ground,...
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3 | Dogs (and People) Donāt Train Alone
Look back at every pivotal moment in your life, and the transition probably has more to do with a relationship than a raw decision.
This means that each time you āleveled upā and achieved something, there were...
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