Battleground Believers Podcast

EP 50 On today’s powerful episode, Brad sits down with his father

Battleground Believers Season 2 Episode 50

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0:00 | 29:48

On today’s powerful episode, Brad sits down with his father, Rick Dunnuck, for an intimate conversation about Rick’s tumultuous childhood—a journey through pain, heartbreak, and resilience, as he shares how hope began to emerge from his darkest moments.

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SPEAKER_00

Hey, welcome Battleground Believers. It's so nice to be back creating content like this. And we want to thank you so much for being a part of the audience. We know we kind of went through a tough time where we didn't put out very much content, and we're very sorry for that. But uh tonight I have a special guest, uh, my my dad. And uh as you can see as you look around, we're not in the two bar blues studio. Uh we are very connected with Randy still, and uh his stuff his studio is amazing. He can do music, he can do podcasts, stand-up comedy, anything you need him to record. Now, if you're interested in working with the two bars, two bar blues, I always mess that up. Studio, reach out to battlegroundbelievers.com and we'll give you his contact information. Uh, so just be aware. Uh I just wanted to make a note of that. I also want to say a shout out to uh Freedom by Truth Ministries. Uh Keith Pascalone came in the uh studio and and and interviewed with us, and they got a great ministry going on out there at um in Elkhart and uh trying to partner with them and promote their stuff as well, as well as uh Andrew Talamentez is uh we're getting ready to have a uh men's retreat that Andrew put together and uh we're planning on being there at Sunrise Church off Illinois Road. It sits at the corner of Illinois and uh Hadley, no Illinois is Illinois and Scott. Now, if you're not from this town or anything, you're not gonna know where that is. Uh, but if you are from Fort Wayne, Google it. Yeah, Google it. It's called Sunrise Church, S-O-N-R-S-E. And actually, they have a uh website called the Brave and the Bold Retreat, and that's how you sign up for it. But want to say a shout-out to them. Uh Battleground Believers is planning on being there and shooting content and um meeting people and and being a part of the great ministry that they got going on. But tonight, uh, this is more about uh interviewing you and and and finding about your life. Um, I I know some things about you, um, you know, stories I heard. And I actually through this this process, I've learned some things about you I didn't know. And uh you you not not that you became a Christian, but you really got serious about your faith not too long ago, correct?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Uh about three years ago.

SPEAKER_00

So about three years ago, you really, really came back but came back. But um when I was a younger man and I was in the army, you were in a marine corps, uh, I looked to you to leadership and you led me through a lot of a lot of things. And so knowing some of the stories that you some of the stuff that I I had been shared either through my grandmother or through you, uh life for you as a young man wasn't easy, right? We can look back now, because when I when you talk about it, you say, hey, it's a real blessing because it drove me to be the man I am. But in the moment, it wasn't it wasn't a blessing, right? Right. And so tonight what we're gonna do is we're gonna sit down and let you kind of tell your story. Now be aware I'm gonna interject, like if I I want some clarification or uh ask you some questions. I don't mean to interrupt you, but just uh I want to make sure that if I don't understand it and I know you, they're not gonna understand it. So I might ask some clarification. Um, but thank you so much for for taking the time uh to be here and and uh making time for this this podcast. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Well it's a pleasure to be here, and I know you put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in this, and I'm very proud of you for what you're doing in this. It takes a lot of courage to get out and do what you're doing, and you do it quite well, and we're here to support you. And uh hopefully I can give you a gift that uh my mother gave me when I interviewed her. And one of the shortcomings I see is I didn't do this with my father through my father's death. It's like I wished I would have done that with dad to learn a lot of things about him and ask him questions. Something that would be a jewel for the family for the rest of their lives. But we had that with our mother. So it's really good to be here and to share some insights to you and to your audience. And no matter who's out there that's really facing some hard times, you know, you can overcome an attitude, is everything.

SPEAKER_00

Again, and Battleground Believers, our tagline is telling his story through your story. And so tonight, we want, you know, over the next however many episodes this ends up being, we want you to tell God's story through your story, right? Of uh disappointment, sadness, um hurt all the way through uh, you know, the man you aren't out. You were marine for 30 years, very successful. You left probably at the highest level that you were able to. There was there was not another job you could have taken that would have been higher than what you were doing. Right, right. Okay. And I'll let you later on we'll we'll share where you were and and as much of that as you're willing to share. And uh uh got a degree, have a have a good marriage, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02

GED then a degree, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

GED degree, and then got a college degree and um just grown from everything that happened as a young man to to to the guy that you are today.

SPEAKER_02

And uh very blessed, very fortunate.

SPEAKER_00

But anyway, we're gonna go ahead and we'll kick this off, and I'm just gonna turn it over to you, and I want you to kind of talk about let's start uh wherever you want, uh your childhood and and share some stuff about your childhood so we can kind of see like, hey, who were you? Like, you know, because when we're when we're children, I think that's where we um find out who we are, right? Like I have some distinct memories of things that happened to me as a child, and they still affect me today, right? You know what I mean? And I think that that's most people, and being able to get past to some of that stuff that happened when you're a child is kind of the key. And sometimes some of those hurts go so deep that it takes the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to to break those those those chains and and uh to forgive, you know, because I I know I have some people that hurt me as a child, and I in my mind I think I've forgiven them, but that doesn't mean every so often it doesn't come back up, and then I I grab that anger back, right? And uh so uh I'll I'll stop talking, which I know my wife's over there going, yes. Uh uh there are people in the room uh this time, so especially we're in we're in my living room, and um we do have people in the room. So if you hear a bunch of background noise, it's because they're uh hopefully they're laughing uh if we make a joke. So uh Rick, Dad, father, uh tell me, tell me all the stuff about you.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm uh the oldest of four children. Have a brother Randy, Debbie, and Deanna.

SPEAKER_00

Uh those are the Debbie and Deanna are sisters.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they're sisters. Yeah, and we come from a normal family, lived out in the country in Albany, Indiana. We had a beautiful ranch home, and like sadly, like so many families that experience even today, it ended in a divorce. Uh we didn't know it was coming, and everything changed immediately in the way we lived. We went from a beautiful home in the country to a shack in the town of Albany that was right next to the water company. So that's kind of the framework of our childhood. But when we lived out in the country, we always, we being my brother, always fought for dad's attention. And our Christianity began as little children. Mom was really in the Catholic Church, and we would uh go to church every Sunday. Dad would lay on the couch listening to Marty Robbins Battleground uh Gunfighter's Ballad. I that album, I have that album just because of that reason, and we would go to church and we wouldn't understand a word that was being said. We were in catechism, we were learning prayers, we were getting our hands smacked because we couldn't remember our prayers. We didn't even learn how we fold your hands. So that was our first um brush with with Christianity, was the Catholic Church, but it was disjointed because we were we were like seven, eight, nine years old. But we were we were in that discipline of going to church religion.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um let's see. Kind of helped me, Brad.

SPEAKER_00

Um like okay, so you you just alluded to the fact that that my grandmother and my grandfather got a divorce, and when that happened, you went from a for the most part a happy home, a happy family, or what perceived as that.

SPEAKER_02

And it happened abruptly because I for think it was 1967. We all went to Canada to the World's Fair 1967, Expo 1967, and we were camping, we were traveling, and there are distant memories of that, which was a wonderful time.

SPEAKER_00

I saw videos of that at D at Debbie's. Yeah. She had videos. Oh, did she? Yeah, because you guys uh you weren't there, it was Deanna, Debbie, me, and there's a f slew of other people on Randy. And and Randy kept saying every time he goes, Oh, look, Dad's in the video, he's gonna be gone soon. He kept saying that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because when we came back, dad was gone. And that was how it happened. And the same time this was going on just a few years prior, mom lost her father in an automobile accident, and then mom's mom was um battling alcoholism. So mom was fighting all these forces with her mother, trying to raise her sister, my aunt, who's two year months younger than me, because when mom was pregnant for me, her mom was pregnant for Jane. Yeah, good well, yeah, because of the 50s, how that happened, who knows? So all these things mom's wrestling with, then all of a sudden her marriage is just you know, adultery fair on dad's part and just exploded. And and us kids become rebellious, and especially me, very troubled from it because I blamed everything on my mom. I think most guys yeah, they do, and that's very wrong. It's very wrong. Mother's a gift, and I abused it. I mean, I was brutal.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but I I mean, I I think I probably did the same thing. I idolized you, even though I lived with my mother, and you know, my mom's doing everything in the world to to take care of me, and I'm just like, dad is great, and you suck.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, she didn't deserve that. And yeah, Cheryl, if you're watching, I'm forgive me, I'm very sorry.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's that was my fault. That's not so much I just think boys that's how most boys do that. That I think that's part of what happens as a as a child. I I I can I know my kids probably felt the same way because I heard stories about them saying, Hey, I w wish living with dad would be so much better, even though you know their mother took care of everything they needed as a kid. So um, but anyway, so now we're moving through. Dad leaves, you guys move into a a shack, a nasty place, right? And are you and Randy still fighting? I mean, how are you the the four the four are you getting along or you just not?

SPEAKER_02

Deanna and Debbie and Deanna were kind of like the lone, and Randy and I were always combative. And I remember being in this shack across the Albany Waterworks, and mom broke out the dictionary and tried to give us the Webster dish definition of a divorce. And this is a story I you know never heard, and it's really quick. Is mom's telling us about divorce, and we have radiator heat and it's cold, and Randy starts making gestures, and I give Randy the middle finger, and mom sees me do that. Mom takes me in the back, and Lily grabs a bar of soap and starts washing my mouth out with soap. Well, I thought I was being brilliant and had my teeth like this. So mom grabs my nose like this, and then what she did. I opened my mouth, and mom shoved that bar of soap in my mouth, and you can see the teeth marks on it, right? Randy didn't get in any trouble, the best of my memory. It was all me.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Well, you're the one that got caught flipping mom.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but he started it. And Deb and Deanna are just sitting there crying, and I think Debbie said, I hate you, mom. And again, it I I could be wrong on this. We're talking this was 1967, maybe early 68. You know, so times were very different back then.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. Well, and you guys are children. Your concept of what's going on is dad's gone, mom's not, mom must have sent him away. So, I mean, it's misunderstanding. But my grandmother, Grandma Judy, uh, when she when we talked, she never those those memories, you know what I mean? She never looked, you know, at least to me, about that. She loved you guys.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, mom was a saint. Mom is the found mothers are a foundation of every family. Although Christ is the bedrock, mothers are amazing. Um just had a thought that when you were born, I know we're jumping up, but we're in the hospital, and mom is there, and mom and I go downstairs to get something in the cafeteria, and somehow we're notified that your mother is getting ready to deliver you. I am paralyzed. We're walking up the steps, trying to walk up so slow, and your grandmother Judia is pushing me up these steps. I don't want to go, mom. I'm 16 years old, I'm 17 now, because we were 16, and we get up there, and um, just this beautiful baby, and I was paralyzed, like, oh my god, it's a life.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that you're in charge of.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you and your mother and I, yeah. With the help of family, immense help.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, well, we're gonna get there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I didn't mean to jump ahead, but that was just a funny story. Your grandma Judy's pushing you at the ladder, well, I'm I'm I'm paralyzed, like, Mom, slow down. I'm about to have a different world here in a minute.

SPEAKER_00

Well, yeah, and uh, you know, she's grandma. Life is different when you're your grandma or grandpa, but so we're you we've talked about how you guys moved in the shack, you and Randy are at it, so I'm guessing you used to get in trouble all the time, right? Yep. And then uh at some point you get to move move in with your dad. Is it because you're so out of control? You told a story about you getting in a fight and tearing down a door and chasing Randy down.

SPEAKER_02

So from this shack, from the water thing, uh, we relocated to a better home not far from there, and um I had a appendicitis attack in the morning, and I was Randy and I were notorious trying to get out of school, uh, faking it, and uh we weren't very successful. And mom thought this morning I was faking it, and I wasn't, and she quickly realized I wasn't faking and rushed me to the hospital. No ambulance, just she drove me to Muncie the hospital. And when I got to the hospital, I got there just in time when they opened me up that the appendix burst, and I got a really big scar here from that, which meant I had to stay in there longer and you know, just a longer recovery. And then um, dad would come to visit me in the hospital.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you was grandma okay, so they're not married at this point.

SPEAKER_02

No, they're divorced. Okay, they're divorced, and mom is dating Jerry. Remember Jerry Ranch? Yeah, I remember Jerry.

SPEAKER_00

Everybody used to say I was the apple of his eye.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, Jerry was the same. I didn't I didn't treat him well either. And uh so when I got released from the hospital, I I went we went back home, and Randy, and again, we're we're very young, and we remember we're always fighting for dad's affection. Randy, we just starved for a man in our lives, a father figure. And uh Randy said, Dad loves me more than you. Well, I went berserk. We had a BB gun, Randy Sole. I went berserk. He ran in his bedroom, shut the door, metal door. I got a BB gun, the butt of the gun, I I broke the doorknob off. The time I opened a door, Randy's rear end is going out the window. I'm in my underwear and a t-shirt, I think. Well, Randy no further got out the window, and my butt was going through the window, and I caught him in the middle of the street and I started beating up on him. And that was determined that I was out of control.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so yeah, you're beating on your brother, and then they they think, okay, grandma's like, I can't, I can't handle this kid, he's out of control. You're moving to your dad's, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and it was it wasn't you're leaving, if I remember, it was like, Do you want to live with your father? Well, through the separation, every time we would go see dad, it was brand new cars, nice clothes, big TV, beautiful house. What do you want to do? Oh, but at the same time, they were talking their life, and we felt disconnected. Because every time we went there, it was like, you know, they're making all these plans that they're going to do. Like, we're gonna go here, we're gonna go there. We weren't including those plans.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

So when it came for me to go live with your dad, I was like, sign me up. I want to be part of that life.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so you wanted to move in with your dad at first.

SPEAKER_02

When I was brought to me, yes, yes, I want to live with dad. Because they live in a great grass was greener, yeah. Where the grass was stained very bad. And um so you move in, right?

SPEAKER_00

He's married to a lady named Dovey, and uh my recollection of the stories is uh they just they fought all the time.

SPEAKER_02

She was insanely jealous, she was jealous of me. I was so much abuse as far as non-verbal abuse and wouldn't talk to me, and you know, um just I chewed ice, drove her nuts. She would do berserk. And uh she was Debbie would go off just like this, and Dad couldn't do anything to make her happy. One Christmas, Dad bought her this really beautiful piece of jewelry, well it wasn't ready, so he put it in a tree, and it was it was cosmetic Jewry to replicate what he bought her. Well, she lost her mind. And I'm look I'm witnessing all these things. It was like, and you know, um, it was terrible. And then as we were talking earlier, what really broke me from living in that environment that led me to fall meet your mother and fall in love was Debbie accused me of not taking a bath. It was, you know, you're you're 15 years old, you know, who wants to take a bath all the time, right? Well, I remember taking a bath because I sat in the bathtub and I felt the vibration, whatever it was, and Debbie went there to check it to make sure I was and it was dry. I remember coming down, I was in shorts and a t-shirt, maybe socks, and it's February. It's cold in the near it's very cold. Snow was on the ground, and she says, Um, you didn't take a bath. Yes, I did. And dad comes around the corner and she graves and says, You tell your father you didn't take a bath. Well, I'm a big guy about being honest most of the time. And I wasn't gonna lie, I took a bath. So I looked at her, Fitz Clisp on my shirt. I look at dad, and dad's like, he wasn't present. So I got away from Dovey, bolted to the front door, got to the front door, and dad said one word stop. I didn't stop. I didn't I didn't have any confidence in my father. I ran through the front door, ran around the neighborhood, knocked on a friend's door, I said, Hey, uh, I'm in trouble, da-da-da. He says, You need to go back and talk to your father. And about that time, you know, I looked down the street.

SPEAKER_00

That was your friend or your friend's dad?

SPEAKER_02

My friend, yeah. Another friend, you know, another teenager. And so we hide behind this car. His dad's coming. Ice is on the road. You can hear the car just clicking on the ice, and dad's got Electro 225, beautiful Buick. I run around the back of it, the stop sign, open the door, says, Dad, we gotta talk. He says, Start talking. So I just unload on him what happened. And we get there, he says, get in the basement. He goes down the basement, shuts the basement door, says, Give me your belt. I'm kind of like, I know what's gonna happen. So I give him my belt, takes my hand, and he starts whipping me. Well, you know, I'm not no dummy. I'm gonna run around. So I'm running around, get away from the belt. He can't catch me because I'm going around.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So he he takes me, there's a steps, comes down from the basement. He lays me across the back of the steps, and he starts whipping me. And I just remember looking over my shoulder and saying, Dad, why are you whipping me? Why are you beating me? He says, Because you didn't do what I told you. Profound effect. Profound effect on me. Because we lived in fear when we lived with dad and mom. Dad, dad, dad ruled the family through fear and intimidation. And that is no way to bring up children. At the same time, we were battling for his attention. Anytime we get in trouble, we had to go out in the woods and find a stick. And dad would beat us. And I remember putting pillows in our pants. And that does not if you're gonna think about that, it doesn't work. It was so bad that mom created this piece of paper with our names on it. And if you got so many marks, you were going to get whipped by your dad when he got home. Because mom was the woman that would say, wait till your father gets home. That's another way you shouldn't do it. You should bust your butt right when they do it. So me and Randy, hey, that's a challenge. Who get the most marks? I don't know who won, but we both got a whip. And mom, needless to say, mom threw that paper away, didn't happen.

SPEAKER_00

So you had alluded to the fact that that beating that you're talking about, which is sounds horrible, uh, somehow brought you to meet my mother.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I was I didn't feel love. I I didn't feel anything, I was numb. And then we go to the lakes, and there's this beautiful blonde, and she looks at me, and we just kind of like connected. And then from there, I just went bad. I went brain dead. School didn't matter, nothing mattered.

SPEAKER_00

Well, we were you you were thinking with another part of your body.

SPEAKER_02

I was, and you know, here's another thing about my father. I came home and I had this mark on my neck. And you told me the story. Yeah, what dad, what's that? My dad said, What's that? And I was real proud. And he he came back with this really um inappropriate comment about it and where it should have been put is a sign of professional uh sexmanship. Because I remember going with dad when I lived with him in Muncie, and dad would point out places where it was a good place to pick up women. So I never had that discipline of respect women. Dad was always like he's a womanizer to the max.

SPEAKER_00

To the max. It was terrible.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So you meet you meet my mother, and all your blood goes from here down into here, right?

SPEAKER_02

And so do you guys start dating or well, we see each other, and your mom can drive. I can't drive yet because she's older than me. And your mom had a car, she had a 67 Chevy Impala, had a dent in the left fender, and when it rained, it wouldn't start. And your grandpa Welch would always be one who would fix it, and I'd be like enamored by wow, I wish I could figure out how to do that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, my grandpa was a a good mechanic.

SPEAKER_02

He was very he was a good man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So at some point, you guys obviously uh indulge in a little premarital sex, right? Because that's how I get that's how I come into the picture. Yeah. So you get my mother pregnant, knowing the story of your dad and the life you lived, how did that go? Hey dad, by the way, I mean, grandpa, I mean how'd that how do you how'd you lay that out to them?

SPEAKER_02

That was some of it, you know, we're talking 52 years ago, right?

SPEAKER_00

51. No, I'll be 52 because I'm 51.

SPEAKER_02

52, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

My bad.

SPEAKER_02

So your grandma and grandpa Welsh, dad and Dovey, your mom and I, come to our house in the evening, what are we gonna do? Dad was I was really surprised. I remember dad was it was like, how what are we gonna how are we gonna do this? Because abortion never came up. And we're trying to figure out do they get married, do they don't, what you know, and I'm like, I'm I'm paralyzed. I don't know. I'm 16 years old, and I've been abused most of the time, verbally, nonverbal, shunned. And here I am with a woman that I'm madly in love with who's pregnant, and I'm like, my whole life is is ahead of me. And I you're pregnant. And she, these are things that I remember running through my mind as a 16-year-old. She leaves the room and goes to the bathroom. And tears, right? And tears. And immediately my manhood just shot right up. I get up, I walk in the bathroom, I accept responsibility. We're getting married. She's a lot better because now she's not alone. Because can you imagine how your mom felt? I'm pregnant. Yeah, she's scared to death. I'm scared to death and I'm isolated, I'm alone.

SPEAKER_00

So then when you said we're gonna get married, did she say yes?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Oh, yeah. We loved each other. What we thought was love.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah. You're six, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we're 16 years old. And um, so we come out and we say, This is what we're gonna do. And uh, I'm working at a gas station pumping gas. I think gas was 36 cents a gallon, by the way. Yeah, so I'm pumping gas. And um, we get married. We get married um January 12th, because I think your mother's birthday was January 10th. And the Justice the Peace and the Just of the Peace is wearing a brown shirt with a piece of food stain right. I'll never forget it. And when we're getting married, he's lecturing me on the sanctity of marriage and it's a lifelong commitment. And I just remember staring at his shirt with food stain right there, brown, out in the country. Mom didn't know anything about it. That was another thing in this process. She reads the paper, she's in Middletown, Indiana, and she reads the paper, and she's a marriage license for Rick Dunnock and Cheryl Dahl, Cheryl Welch. Yeah, I was gonna say she was Welch at that time. Yeah, and uh calls the house, and somehow I get on the phone. Mom straight up asked me, and I'm like, mommy needs to talk to dad, and to dad, and I don't know what transpires. So that's how my mom found out I was getting married. She read it in the marriage lies because dad didn't say anything to her, didn't share none of it, none of that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think I think grandma shared that with me uh about that. Wow. Well, we're uh we're getting ready to wind down this uh this episode, right?

SPEAKER_02

We got a lot more, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So um next you know, next week we'll come back together and meet, and and and I uh now we want to kind of hear the next step. As much as you want to share about being married at 16 and and having a house, and there's some stories about how you paid your rent, I think would be really telling.

SPEAKER_02

And um Yeah, we were not we were not left to our own devices, we had help. Okay, and uh, you know, every child, like you help your children, we help our children, you, and those things are just passed down knowingly from generation. Even in with the bad genes that make you do stupid stuff. Yeah. The thing of taking care of your family also hopefully passes down.

SPEAKER_00

So we'll go into that the next episode. Look forward to it. Hey, uh, thank you so much for being uh part of the Battleground Believers um audience. Uh, we really do uh appreciate uh we get people that make comments and and hard our stuff and and thumb it up and things like that. And uh we really do it means a lot, especially people that are making comments about hey, this episode touched me or I enjoyed this, um, those kind of things, because we want to know that there's that this is actually a ministry and that people are being blessed by the stories that are being told. And we want to make ourselves available uh to people so we can tell regular stories. Again, our tagline is telling his story through your story. And the idea is telling how God worked in our lives so that somebody's watching this saying, hey, I'm going through that same thing. If he can make it, I can make it. Thank you so much again. Uh to the two bar blue studio that we're not in tonight. Give a shout out to Randy Barr and and Matt Carter, wherever he's at this evening. And uh uh all that call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Battleground believers, out. Amen.

SPEAKER_02

Is that better?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.