Inside The Stories Bringing Veterans’ Service To Young Readers

A single word on a headstone—Unknown—sent author Jeff Gottesfeld on a path to write children’s books that carry the weight of service with grace. Today, we sit down with Jeff to trace that path from 21 Steps: Guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to his new large-format book, Honor Flight: Celebrating America’s Veterans, and a forthcoming project that centers on the kids who also serve.

We dig into how a writer chooses the right voice for young readers without softening the truth. Jeff shares why his early draft didn’t land, how a first-person perspective unlocked emotional clarity, and what collaborating with illustrator Matt Tavares adds to solemn subjects like the Tomb Guards. Then we climb aboard an actual Honor Flight as Jeff recounts serving as a guardian for a Vietnam-era sailor: the early-morning bustle, the wheelchairs rolling in formation, the crackle of stories traded on the bus, and the overdue homecoming so many never received. Honor Flight’s generous, coffee-table scale turns reading into a family ritual—perfect for parents and grandparents to point at the page and say, “That was me,” while kids learn what service and gratitude look like in real life.

We also preview We All Serve, a book that gives military children a mirror and civilian classmates a window. Frequent moves, missed holidays, long deployments, and the quiet courage of welcoming a wounded parent home—these are the threads often unseen outside the base gate. Jeff explains why these stories matter now, when fewer than 1% serve but 100% can learn to honor sacrifice. Along the way, we highlight community efforts that lift up military families and show how schools, libraries, veteran groups, and neighbors can use these books to spark honest, hopeful conversations.

If stories shape what a nation remembers, these pages help us remember well. Listen, share with a veteran or teacher, and help a child connect to the people behind the uniforms. If you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe, leave a review, and pass the episode to someone who could use a new way to talk about service.

Transcript

Meet Jeff Gottesfeld And Mission

Larry Zilliox 0:15

Good morning. I'm your host, Larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run. This week, our guest is Jeff Gottesfeld, and he is an author of children's books, and he's just released a brand new book called Honor Flight, which is the story of the Honor Flight program and how it brings elderly veterans to DC to see memorials. And this is an amazing book for kids. And I want to talk to him about this book and a couple of other uh military-oriented children's books he's written. Um, so Jeff, welcome to the podcast.

Jeff Gottesfeld 0:56

It is great to be with you. Thanks for inviting me. So are are you prior service? Oh, the right answer would be yes, absolutely. But the truthful answer, no, not. Uh, I did not serve. I've got three big strapping brothers. Uh, they did not serve, nor did my parents, nor did my grandparents. Uh, in fact, I came of age during the Vietnam era. And if you had told 17-year-old Jeff uh in Teaneck, New Jersey that one day he would be centering his children's book writing themes on themes to the American military, 17-year-old Jeff would have said you were out of your mind.

From Antiwar Teen To Military Themes

Larry Zilliox 1:42

Well, then, um, how did it come about that you decided to write this book? Well, let's go back and let's take a look. Your very first military-themed uh book came out in I think 2021 called 21 Steps, Guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And how did it come about that you wanted to do a children's book with that theme?

Discovering The Tomb Of The Unknowns

Jeff Gottesfeld 2:08

Well, fortunately, I didn't stay 17 years old. Um, I I I grew up and and traveled America and traveled the world. I lived in France for a while. I've visited 46 out of 50 states, and and my my viewpoint on uh on the world and on America as it should uh shifted with age to where I came to see the United States military as probably the greatest fighting force for good in the history of the planet. And with that realization, I started visiting national cemeteries on Memorial Days, probably going back to the late 1980s, even. Uh, it was Memorial Day 26, uh 2012. I was gonna say 2016-2012, uh, where I saw I saw a tombstone, no, 2016, let's get it right. Uh, a tombstone at the National Cemetery in Los Angeles that said unknown on it. Um on Memorial Day, I'm wandering around. I saw another one that said unknown, uh, flashed on my own boyhood visit to the tomb of the unknown soldier uh in DC and uh at Arlington National Cemetery, and realized that I knew nothing. I didn't know who was buried there, I didn't know when the tomb was erected, and I certainly didn't know anything about the tomb guards who guarded it so carefully. By the time I left the cemetery that day, I was determined to write that book.

Larry Zilliox 3:49

How is it different? I mean, you've got to break that story down considerably when you're writing something for children. So, with all that information, how do you decide what to put in Yeah?

Cracking A Children’s Story Perspective

Jeff Gottesfeld 4:05

It's a great it's a great question. And the next step of the question is how can you tell that story in a way that's gonna work for a third grader? Yeah, and uh I went, you know, I went at it once in a sort of a third person kind of storytelling way. I was gonna have a kid come with his parents to DC, uh, and then go to Arlington on just an absolutely ghastly rainy day. Uh, kid didn't want to go, but the kid would meet a tomb guard. Tombguard was gonna tell the kid all about what they did in the tomb. And you know, it turned out it wasn't terrible. It was it was probably okay, but it wasn't good enough. And uh I give credit to my agent uh who knew that I had told the story in my first children's book from a unique perspective. And she said, Jeff, do you think you can tell this story from the point of view of the tomb itself? And I said, No, but maybe I can do it from the point of view of the first unknown. And once I had the point of view, and I had a first-person voice who could speak for unknown soldiers, uh, that broke the story open. And then I had a perspective, right? Uh for what the unknown would know and what the unknown would see.

Larry Zilliox 5:34

Well, it's it's an it's it's a fan fascinating concept. It really is. Um well, because uh most people don't write books for kids, so um it's a mystery to us how it how it happens, but yeah, that's pretty crazy. Um so now let's talk about your latest book, which was just released on March 3rd. And listeners, uh, this one is called Honor Flight Celebrating America's Veterans, and uh it's about the Honor Flight program and how this program brings elderly veterans for a free trip from various parts of the country to DC with an escort, usually a relative. Um, and they uh give them a first-class treatment and get to visit the various memorials around the city. But uh this was just released on March 3rd, and uh I'll have a link to all the books in the show notes, so don't worry, it's gonna be easy for you to order them. And the thing that caught my eye about this book is the size of it. It's it's a large book, it's what I always remembered people saying and referring to as a coffee table book, because it was big than bigger than your usual book. But I really love this book because the illustrations are phenomenal, they're just really, really good, and it tells your story um in great, very soft pictures that that are so meaningful. Did you go on an honor flight? How did you figure out you know how to write this book?

Honor Flight Book And Art

Jeff Gottesfeld 7:21

I I did. First of all, those illustrations are done by Matt Tavares, uh, who is famous. And Matt was was the illustrator on 21 Steps. So we are back together on this. At this point, we are friends, his wife and and my my de facto wife. We we go we go out together. Um, so we are we are completely in sync in our storytelling. For honor fight, I got the idea from it from obviously in after 21 steps. I spoke to lots of vets and lots of veteran groups and then like kids' groups, USO and uh then VAs, and I heard about this program, um, started researching it, uh, and it was amazing. I mean, this started totally volunteer. There's no cost to the veteran, the cost to the guardian is actually fairly modest to support the flight. And um I was already at work on the book when I went on my own honor flight, which was in April of 2023. Uh, it was with uh honor flight central coast, California, out of Santa Maria, California, and I was the guardian for a person I had never met before, uh a fellow named David McGinley, uh Vietnam era vet served on a destroyer tin can uh Tintan Sailor. And uh I picked up Dave in Oxnard, California, and drove to Santa Maria, and we were together for the next three or four days. And by the end of this, we were buds. Uh and and it was it was just so beautiful to see this. I mean, that it's all these elderly folks, and it's so loud because they're they're talking with one another and forming friendships and swapping stories, and and that yeah, they get to have this trip where where their service is celebrated, and then they get the homecoming that many of them, especially for the Vietnam era, never got.

Larry Zilliox 9:31

Yeah.

Jeff Gottesfeld 9:32

So for this book, I tell the story from the point of view of an unnamed vet uh who goes on an honor fight. His guardian is a teacher of a fourth grade, and I'm not gonna tell you what happens at the end of the book.

Larry Zilliox 9:45

Right. Well, I'm not gonna divulge it either. But what I really like about this book, listeners, is that this is a great way to introduce your younger children in your family to what dad or grandpa did in the military, what their service was like. And it's a it also instills in them the concept that they should be rewarded for what they did for standing up, raising their hand, volunteering. You know, I I I went in in 77, my class graduated in 1975, and we were the very first volunteers to go into the military. Everybody before that had been drafted. Right, right, and so that's what today's military and uh service branches are. They're full of volunteers, less than one percent of our population serves. And so this is a great book to help you explain what your dad or grandfather or uncle or next door neighbor did in supporting and and and being there to serve in the military. So please, listeners, pick up a copy of this book. Again, we're gonna have that link in the uh in the show notes. So, as excited as I was about this book, I'm a little bit more excited about a forthcoming book in October, uh, one about military children called We All Serve. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Riding Along On An Honor Flight

Jeff Gottesfeld 11:28

Yeah, I'd be I'd be delighted. And and again, this is post-21 steps. I'm talking to the Elizabeth Dole Foundation uh kids, and I'm talking to USO kids, and I'm traveling to eastern North Carolina to speak at uh blue at Blue Star schools with all these military kids. And um, you know, for me growing up in Teaneck, New Jersey, uh, with no one in the server, no nobody uh who'd been in the service in my family, and certainly no one who was career, I didn't know really much about the lives of so-called military brats. And they look like everybody else, they look like every other kid, but their lives are not like any other kids. Uh, their lives are are extraordinary and special and different. I mean, mom and dad's first responsibility um may not be to them, it's to the service. You know, the service says you're going to Germany, you're going to Germany. Uh, if mom or dad goes on a mission, there may not be Christmas until February. There's nobody to read the bedtime story for you. You are a de facto ambassador for the United States when you're traveling outside the US. Uh, there are all these aspects of military brats' lives that uh you just can't see from the outside. So I want I want kids reading this book who are brats to say, okay, I'm looking in the mirror here, and I want kids who are not brats, but who may have uh who may have brats in their in their classroom or or encounter them to have a window uh into what that life is like.

Larry Zilliox 13:16

Yeah. Yeah, because it it is hard. I think for for most military children, the hardest thing is two things. Number one, seeing their parents leave on deployment, not knowing when they're gonna come back, or they hear from other children uh whose parents didn't come back. And so they they have to live with that. But then there's also the uh PCS or permanent change of station, where you know, they're here for two years, then they're there for two years. You know, um a good friend of ours uh is a retired Army four-star general. Well, he moved his family nearly 30 times over the course of his career. And during the formative years, when you're a young kid, you know, every two years you gotta make new friends. And we see very often, especially towards the end of their career, we see military service members who say, you know, I'm gonna take an unaccompanied assignment for the last couple of years because I don't want to move my kids out of school this last time. They're in high school. I don't want them to get up and have to go to a new school, especially if I'm going overseas, like to Korea or someplace like that. Um sure.

Jeff Gottesfeld 14:32

And and what I've seen is that you these kids themselves, they'll I mean, they'll tell you, you know, there's there's huge advantages to uh to being a brat. You travel the world, you are you are in a largely color neutral environment in in the military, or that it's not that people are colorblind, but this is a a skills-based uh uh system. You have excellent DOG schools. Um, but on the other hand, if people ask you where you're from, your answer might be, well, I'm from the Navy, right? Because where'd you where'd you grow up? You grew up everywhere. Uh you may not get to see grandma and grandpa uh more than once a year. It is it is a very, very different way to come of age.

Larry Zilliox 15:17

Yeah. How did you decide you wanted to do a book about military children?

Why This Story Matters To Families

Jeff Gottesfeld 15:22

It was it was the military kids themselves telling me their stories. Uh in and talks that I did to the U to USO, uh talks I did in in schools, you know, kids would come in, you know, I'd ask people to raise their hands like in the classroom. Anyone who's got a a parent or an uncle, you know, who's on who's on active duty. Um and um then the hands would go the hands would go up and I'd get connected to uh to the to these kids and they'd tell me their stories, and I looked at the literature, and you know, here I am again. Look, I'm an im I feel I'm an imperfect messenger here, you know, to to do this, but the stories need to be told, and it's not like they're new, right? Yeah, these every single thing I'm writing about has been around for a long time. Uh, Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers since 1921. Yeah, honor flight program since 2005, military brats forever. So if no one else is gonna tell the story, I'm gonna do it as well as I possibly can.

Larry Zilliox 16:27

Well, I I've got two stories for you about military kids. Here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run, we're up on a uh high hill and it's super windy. And it's so windy that um we need to take down in November the service flags around the front of the uh retreat. We have each of the service flags plus our own flag that flies, and we take them down. At a nearby school, there are uh a good number of military children and they fundraise to buy us new flags. And then on May 1st of each year, the kids come out before school with their parents and bring us those new flags, and we partner them with a uh a curmudgeny American Legion guy, and together they've raised the flag while uh we have a bugler play. And uh it's just these are amazing kids, amazing kids. Yeah, they are, and so that's one one way that these kids touch us. Another is we have a close association with a nonprofit called We Signed Up To. And this is a nonprofit that was started by two young ladies who stayed at our retreat with their father in 2018 when he was undergoing treatment at Walter Reed, and they came out and they stayed and had a wonderful time. So now, fast forward to today, and this last year in 2025, almost a year ago, um, they formed this nonprofit called We Signed Up To, and it's a support group for military children of wounded warriors.

Jeff Gottesfeld 18:17

Yeah, right.

We All Serve: Life For Military Kids

Larry Zilliox 18:18

And and it's an online safe space for these kids to get together, and they have a lot of programs where they do for the young kids, they teach them how to make little puppets and things. I mean, it's great little organization. But these two military children decided that these kids who are children of wounded warriors needed their own space, and so they took it upon themselves to do that. And here uh in April, April 4th, we're gonna we're gonna host their one-year anniversary at the Warrior Retreat. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

Jeff Gottesfeld 18:54

It's wonderful. The the illustrator for my book is an army brat, uh, Tamika, Tamika Grooms. So she knows what of she's drawing. Uh, we talk about each of the specific branches of the service, uh, from army to navy to Air Force to Marines to Space Force to uh to Coast Guard, and uh and we get into uh at least a little bit of what you're talking about, about having a wounded warrior, either physically or psychologically, who comes home and is part of the family.

Larry Zilliox 19:27

Yeah, yeah. That's a whole different way of life, you know. It's it's one way that they live with their parents who never deploy or who are you know stationed for three to four years at one base and they don't have any deployments because of the type of job they have or whatever. But then it's another one when you have a wounded warrior in your family. And children are the hidden heroes, they have to step up and they have to um assume roles that uh most children don't even think about.

Jeff Gottesfeld 20:04

You know, from for me, it this it's my kind of story. Uh I am I am much less interested in how people present on the outside than on what's going on on the inside and what makes them tick on the inside, you know. So you military brats who who look like everybody else and have these extraordinary lives, that's my kind of story. Tomb guards who are every walk of life, uh every state in the union, uh, every race, religion, creed, as I say in the book, and who put on those those uniforms and train for the hardest job to get in the army and walk that mat for two years. That's my kind of story.

unknown 20:45

Yeah.

Larry Zilliox 20:45

Yeah. Well, they're special people.

Jeff Gottesfeld 20:47

They they they are. I've talked to lots of them. They are they are a breed apart.

Larry Zilliox 20:51

Yeah, for sure. Well, um, listeners, I'm gonna have the links to the books in the uh show notes. So please order your copy, share them. Uh if you, I mean, they're gonna make great holiday gifts for those service members or veterans in your family to give it to them. So please uh order the books. Uh, you won't be disappointed. Give them to your local library, give them to the local school. You know, encourage your American Legion to order copies or the VFW. They're a great way to introduce kids to military service and various aspects of it. And so um, Jeff, I can't thank you enough for coming on and uh spending a little time with us and talking about the books.

Jeff Gottesfeld 21:40

I I loved it, and uh, maybe we'll talk after we all serve comes out. Okay.

Larry Zilliox 21:45

Yeah, for sure. So, listeners, we'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can reach us at podcast at willingwarriors.org. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms. We're on YouTube and Wreaths Across America Radio. So until then, thanks for listening.