EP 53 Rick Dunnuck Final testimony

In today’s unforgettable episode, Rick Dunnuck brings his powerful testimony full circle—closing a story decades in the making.  
From becoming a father as a teenager, to rising through the ranks as a United States Marine, to finally becoming a man transformed by faith, Rick’s journey is anything but ordinary. This episode runs longer than usual, and honestly… it needed to. Some stories can’t be rushed. Some testimonies deserve room to breathe. And Rick’s is one of them. As he reflects on the battles he fought—externally and internally—you’ll hear the raw honesty of a man who has lived through struggle, responsibility, sacrifice, and redemption. His words carry the weight of experience and the hope of someone who has seen God rewrite the ending. If you love testimonies that hit deep, challenge you, and remind you that no one is too far gone for grace, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Hey, welcome to Battleground Believers. Welcome back. Uh, again, still in studio. Rick Dunnock, my dad. Uh, he's here visiting. They're getting ready to head out on a road trip to Alaska. And uh, as a matter of fact, pretty much as soon as we're done shooting right here, they're they're probably gonna take off. So we're sending some traveling mercies and our love and prayers with you. And uh well, we'll miss you. I miss you quite a bit while you're gone.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

But a good visit.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Living the dream, though, right? Great career retired, and now you just travel around in a camper and and meet people and enjoy America. There's only three states in the continental U.S.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

they haven't been to yet for Alaska, Montana, yeah, Washington, Oregon, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

But I I believe I said I said continental U.S., but okay. But they're going to Alaska and they plan on hitting the other three, right? All four. You'll hit everything. So after this trip, we're done.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

We're gonna sell everything and be done with it. No, it's not true.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Or, and I'm just spitballing here, I could take over and continue to travel.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

You gotta be in your 60s to do that, though.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Well, I have a body of a 70-year-old. Does that count?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

And a and the mind of a child.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Yeah, and the mind of a I'm a dunnock.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

So you're guaranteed to get into heaven because you've got to be in the mind of a child.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

I'm a I'm a I'm a dunnock.

unknown 1:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Anyway, uh, thank you so much for being part of the audience. Remember, like, share, subscribe really helps the channel. And uh, we hope that this is uh is not just informing but entertaining. And uh it's an actual testimony, right? Our tagline is telling his story through your story and uh seeing the fingerprints of God in our lives, and that's that's what we're working on now. And so far, I've seen it throughout the episode. This is gonna, we're gonna conclude it right here. So um thank you so much for for the time. I know this was not easy trying to we're trying to get the technology right and then setting this up, and I know your mind's on on driving and traveling, uh, but that you bet you'd be willing to take the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

It's difficult sitting behind a camera and bearing your soul, and because Brad's trying to pull stuff out that I'm really reserved about. Like as we go in this next episode, he wants kind of like I got somewhere not because of me, but because a lot of people, and that attitude was a big thing. So, with that, Brad, fire away.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Well, that doesn't set me up for success, right? See, this is a reason I'm I'm a challenging. Yeah, I'm the professional. I know you are stop taking my job. Okay, you that'd be like me jumping in the camper leaving right now.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, you need a good credit card because gas is not 29 cents anymore.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Anyway, um, so uh my dad's back, Rick is back to to to to kind of conclude this, and we're gonna see from uh tumultuous childhood, um middle or you know, went through some bad stuff and relationships and some hurt and loss and some struggle, but now we're gonna we're gonna kind of go through uh the rise out and the victory, right? Because we always want to show, hey, we don't just live in in the bad, you know, in everybody's life you're gonna go through tough times. It's kind of character is kind of how you react to that and and the way you, you know, you can either stay a victim or you can become a um a victor, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

So those things bring you to closer to Christ.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

If you have a relationship with them, right? And so hopefully most of what you went through in your life drove you to Jesus so that when you finally actually came to him, it was kind of full circle, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, yeah. The foundation was our mother, and we had that as growing up, and it was constantly. And then my experience in Pensacola, Florida with the Pentecostal Holiness Church was like, it was like for me, that was the real worshiping. I mean, it was it was legit. You just didn't go on Sunday and that was it. I mean, it was in just like in our life now, we'll talk about that, but when we're on the road, we're on the road and we we really strive to stay close to Christ. But when we're home, we're submerged in our church, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. Okay, but uh that was a beautiful um blessing that we got, and we believe that uh God led us to Northeast Tennessee and Crossroads Cowboy Church.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

But before getting to that point, when we last left off, you had just gotten it to the point where Danielle, my sister, was able to come to the U.S. She wasn't a U.S. citizen, but at least she was able to you were able to leave Okinawa and come home. You were stationed, they sent you to Washington, D.C.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Headquarters, Marine Corps.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Headquarters, Marine Corps, okay. So you you get back to the U.S., you're a single dad, you tried karate here in America and realize that's not for me.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

It wasn't it was it was a phase of my life that was character building, um, humility, appreciation for another culture.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

But it put another it put another level of who you are, right? So you guys move back nobody knows that though.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

When I retired, they made a comment that I had that and everybody in the room was shocked. It's just it's just something you don't talk about.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Yeah, you're not walking around showing people moves.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Hey, those moves are long gone.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Yeah, hey sir, I want to show you something here, throw a punch at me. You know, that's you do that to your kid and crush his chest. Um, so you're back in DC, you have a now, obviously you're working, you you get a place, it's you and Danielle, and so what's going on during this time? Are you just like, hey, I'm just gonna live my life, or were you like, I gotta find a lady?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Well, I'm I'm kind of I'm professionally I'm everything's fine, but personal life, I'm floundering. I'm I'm I'm you know, I'm in my 30s, I've got a child that's seven, I think, and she's still a child, but there's things that are gonna happen in her life that you know I'm not really equipped to address. So I know my clock is running out and I don't want to be alone. And uh early, so a year I was just all over the place emotionally with dating and nothing was really working out. And then one night a friend of mine who lived two houses over at the apartment said, Let's go out. I said, Dan, I don't want to go out. Work tired, said we're going out. So we went out to a place called Studebaker's in Tyson's Quarter, which is long gone. And um, we walk in there, and this is a this is probably a God moment for both of us, but to walk in.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

When you say both of us, you're referring to your wife.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah, Teresa.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Yeah, who's sitting behind?

SPEAKER_00 6:19

I didn't say her name. We haven't introduced her yet. Oh, anyway, what are you doing?

unknown 6:24

This is your camera.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Oh, okay, thank you. I'm getting some direction from our our producer. So we go out, me and Dan, his wife is watching Danielle. We walk in, and uh, I just kind of assess the area looking around, and I see these five beautiful women congregating in the corner talking. And it's clear that anybody's got a brain, they're not there to meet anybody, they're there to catch up on time's past.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Yeah, it's ladies' night. No men.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

So I start drinking water and I'm sitting across the room across the room just watching. And then I see the older lady that's probably younger than I am right now, leave. And then the girls go to dance toward a dance. Well, I kind of come around the corner and grab Teresa by the elbow and say, Would you like to dance?

SPEAKER_02 7:13

So you did you spot her?

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Like when you you're talking about you saw the She had a blue blazer on, white top, brown, beautiful hair, beautiful smile. It's just beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

That feels disgusting.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

And that's why God never answered my prayer in Okinawa, Japan.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

I mean, it was like so so you you said you grab her by the elbow like a big man, and come dance with me. No, it was very general. And she said her her words to me was that when we were talking about this, she said, because I asked her about how what she thought, and she said, I just remember this gigantic chest and these beautiful blue eyes. Yeah, still gross. That's my dance. But anyway, so you meet Teresa, you're on the dance floor.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, we're dancing, and I'm really killing it, you know, because I got that dying move. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

So being not really in the dating scene for you know, in Japan for eight years, and you know, I was kind of fumbling. And so she says, and I believe her, was my question to her was while we're dancing, are you divorced? Was that right? Are you divorced? Normally, are you married? And uh she said yes. And I'm like, Okay, that's good, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yeah, at least there's not a man waiting to beat me up in the party.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

So then all the everybody there, because with her party, and I was with other people that we met, some of the the um DC monitors, they were there as well. And um, so they already want to go to breakfast to some Korean restaurant, like midnight, one o'clock in the morning when the place closed. And uh so Teresa was obviously concerned, what do you should we go? And then one of her friends said, If you don't go, I'm gonna go. Which was like meaning like with yellow. Yeah, yeah, me, yeah, that was good. So I was good job. So we went and we had a really good time.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

And um were you guys sitting together? And did you feel like things clicked?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Oh, immediately. I just you know, you just kind of felt, you know, yeah the chemistry and everything. So uh we had a good time, and Dan, the guy that took me, dragged me out of the apartment. He's Mr. Entertainment, out of control, Dan, and he was telling jokes, doing this, right and there, and it was really good. So we drive back to take the ladies to her car, and we get out and hold her hand. And there's the two sides of this story. She says, I pulled her in, and I say she pulled me in. It don't matter, we we kissed, and then you know, we separate and we go home, and you know, butterflies and whatnot, and uh we just continue to talk on the phone like two little kids, and then we meet for dinner, and Danielle always got a pee. So we get to the door our first night. Teresa's not ready, and before I ring the doorbell, Danielle's got a pee. So I was notorious for pulling off the side of the road, pick Danielle up like this, and let her pee. I mean, she's like seven years old, right? So we do that, pee on her front porch out in the bushes, ring the doorbell, everything's cool. Teresa comes to the door, she's got a bathroom. Did you know that? Later on, she found out. I just want to let you know your bushes have been.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

You didn't have the enough sense to knock on the door and go, hey, I didn't know her yet.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

I don't want, hey, I need to use your bathroom. Remember, I've been in Japan for eight years, so I'm I'm still, and I'm in a I'm in a fleet marine force unit. So I get it. You know, there's no women, there's nothing. It's really a kind of like, I need to chill out. Because when I got orders to DC, I said, I don't belong in the in DC. I need to stay in the fleet.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Yeah, you're in combat arms, combat arms.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

I need I need to stay in the fleet, and I need to be a hub babysitter. I do not need to be in headquarters marine corps because the vocabulary in the artillery is not the vocabulary in the halls of headquarters marine corps. But I adapted. Yeah, I did adapt. Completely understand what you're saying. Like um highway, high high, gunny highway, you know, overcome and adapt. So that's what I did. So, you know, we're going together and everything's great. And um, there's gonna leave a lot of stuff out because we're limited on time, and I want to keep this entertaining and not too deep.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

But needless to say, though, you guys fell in love. Oh, yeah, and got married.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, yeah, got we got married.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Yeah, I was I was there. I I go, I got to come to the wedding. Yeah, it was a good time.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

And so looking back at this point, you evaluate you look at all these things in your life that God was present, but you're so absorbed in the world that you don't see these things. God never leaves us, He never does. Yeah, so that time when I was in Okinawa and I prostrated on the floor and I prayed to save my family, it it came as a full revelation why he didn't save my marriage. Because there were things that happened within that marriage that were irreputable. Although I as hard as I tried. And um, another thing is forgiveness. It's the greatest gift you'll ever have. And uh, and everything that's ever been done to me has been forgiven. And if I've offended anybody or whatnot, please forgive me. So we're in headquarters marine corps, everything's going great. Headquarters Marine Corps relocates to Quantico, and I'm getting answered. I need to get back in the fleet. I want to get back in the fleet and get back to where I was because when I was in the FMF, it was it was absolutely phenomenal because you get in these offices and it's impersonal, but you know, when when you're in a in a combat arms unit, man, it there's a brotherhood, and there's a language and there's a spree de corps. Yeah, I was and that was lacking in the halls of Headquarters Marine Corps. So I got orders 29 pounds. I'm headed to the stumps because Teresa, when we first met, we liked to rock climb and do all these things. So, much to my surprise, the guy at the Commandant's office gets fired. And they say, Dunnock, you're going out to interview for the job at the Commandant.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

At this point, are you guys still dating?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

No, we're married. Okay, so yeah, okay, you're married. We're married now, yeah. Like I said, I'm so I said, Hey, I'm going to 29 Ponds. He said, You think you are? And I was a master sergeant at E8. And they said, You think you are? We're the one who wrote those orders. They've just been canceled. Oh, yeah. Well, I haven't gone out there and interviewed yet. So uh they drive me up to the Pentagon and I meet with the Mill Aide, the senior aide, and he's an artillery officer. And he starts telling me all these problems they've had. And I'm like, hey, this is just basic leadership.

unknown 13:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

And from there I went to speak to the mill sec and the commandant's office. The mill sec is the colonel that's that kind of runs the staff. Okay. Yeah, I need to give you terminology. So, right there, adjacent to his desk, is the Commandant of the Marine Corps' office, uh-huh. Table. I mean, everything. And I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe this. Because when you're down there in the in the lower levels, the higher echelon is just like yeah, they're untouchable, you know. Yeah, I can't relate to it.

unknown 13:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

And I'm talking to him, and it's not going very good.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

The interview's not going well.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Oh no, he's like, he's disinterested, and I'm like, oh man. So he's busy. I mean, he's got paper this high all over the place. Total chaos. And I'm like, man, this is nuts. So I get in the sedan and they drive me back down to Quanico. And um, I walk in the office, and here comes the general, and he says, Congratulations. I'm like, Yeah, I know, sir. I screwed up. Because in the Marine Corps, if you get congratulated, you messed up. At least back in those days. Congratulations, dummy. Yeah, he says, What do you mean you messed up? You got the job. And I'm like, oh no. Are you serious? Everything I didn't want, I just like I get, you know, I got the caught the tailgate. You know, what do I do now that I got a hold of it? And it was a blessing and it was a curse. When I went to the Pentagon, my day started at five o'clock in the morning, and it didn't end till six, seven o'clock at night. And I had some really good NCOs that worked for me, and I wouldn't let them be NCOs because I wanted to, I knew the life they had before I got there. Not that I'm anything great, but I was selfless. At the same time, I wanted to be defensive because if you're not there and something happens, where were you at? This kind of mentality. Yeah. Or to do to do whatever. And so I had this one, his name was Sergeant Crawford, he's a master gunny now and retired. He kept saying, Top, you need to go home to your family. No, I'm sticking it out. You need to go home to your family. You're a young Buck sergeant, you're starting your marriage and all this. You can do this, right? So the whole time I'm on there, you know, I'm I'm getting destroyed. I'm working hard.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

And uh when you say getting destroyed, you mean you're exhausted.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Exhausted, yeah. I mean, you know, and you know, you go anywhere, I had a pager, I had a cell phone. You go to the you want to run PT, you gotta carry a cell phone with you because you never know who's gonna call you. And it'll probably be the Commandant. You gotta, you know, you gotta respond to that kind of stuff, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Just stop running and answer the phone.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, answer the phone or whatever. And and that's where I really got really gut cheap haircuts because I couldn't go to the Pentagon and get a haircut. One, it's expensive, and two, you're too long from the office. So Teresa, you know, she would cut my hair, and it was the first couple were pretty brutal, and then she tied in right in. So, you know, last I don't know how long I had left, like seven years. I never paid for a haircut, Theresa. Every week we had a haircut, boom, boom, boom, boom.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Well, you gotta give her credit then, because if you're working those kind of hours and those exhausted, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Oh, yeah, she was at home. There's a we we go to Lowe's and ask for a military discount, and and I arrogantly said, I did the time. And the lady behind the cash register said, Who had the kids? I'm like, Oh, I know where this is going. Teresa said, I did. She said, You did the time.

unknown 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Okay, I'm spanking me. I'm just me and my guy.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Yeah, the spouses serve in the military, absolutely, even though they're not there.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, that's absolutely okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

So where uh you're Pentagon, you're getting murdered.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

What work hours, you know, just constant work. And then in the summertime, we'd have the evening parades on Marine Barracks Washington, D.C. And the Commandant Marine Corps would host X number of parades. And we would have a have a party before in the rose in the in the garden of the Commandant's quarters, all the dignitaries and whatnot, then they'd go out into the parade and watch the parade, and then they would come back, and then General Jones would do a de-host, which means select people of the party would stay, have hors d'oeuvres and cocktails and mingle.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

But you had to be there.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Well, me and the MILSEC, the colonel, we secured the troops and sent them home. Because we'd be there until one, two o'clock in the morning.

unknown 17:36

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

And there's times where I didn't think I was gonna make it home. And we had our dress blues on and you know it was hot, because the the at the time Marine Berks Washington, DC had this policy that the officers of 8th and I would, after the parade, they would stay at the Commandant's house till like 11 o'clock. And then they would secure. So the guests would have to walk to their home, their their vehicles unescorted. So me and the colonel would escort these people back to their vehicles in downtown Washington, DC, 8th and 9. So another thing on that's unique on the on the Pentagon with the Commandant was the Commandant has a Navy aide, and the chief of uh naval operations, the top man of the Navy, had a Marine Corps aide. So I took care of the um get this right. No. So the Navy had a Marine aide, and I took care of anything administratively for the Marine Aide because that was what we did. And then I had a Navy aide who was normally a pilot who would be the Navy aide to the Commandant. And then he would take care of his administrative stuff for me, you know, help me out. But there's a thing going between the leadership where things were under the table, nothing major, but they were real close hold to the Commandant and Chief of Naval Operations. Well, I was the running guy for the Commandant and Lieutenant Mike Chapman, he's an LDO lieutenant, which means he's prior enlisted. Uh we developed a relationship because we were, you know, the things we were holding were kind of close hold. They weren't classified, maybe they were, but they were things that were unique to these two individuals. I didn't want to get a lot of people involved. So we had back and forth. And I was like, wow, this is he's really great. And um, he leaves, and I don't know it. And my life is just really getting grinding down and down. And I'm going to school to get my degree because I got a GED at Camp Le June. So, because you can't re-enlist if you don't have a high school diploma or equivalent. So in 1980 or 81, I got a general educated dummy certificate. And then after that, I started working on getting enough credits to go to college to get into a degree completion completion program. So through the process at the Pentagon, I was able to get in a degree completion program with Averett University.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

That's where you ultimately graduated from.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

That's where I graduated from, yeah. And uh so I get a phone call one afternoon, and you're I'm I'm getting home and I'm going to bed at eight o'clock. I feel like my life is why why why am I existing? All I'm doing is working and sleeping. And on the weekends, they call me Mr. Snooze a lot. Because I would sleep.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah, because you're exhausted.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yeah. So I get this phone call, and this leads to my final duty station. And everything up to this point is not by me, but it's by people that I worked with, my reputation, my tenacity to excel in everything. I guess it may become when you and our your mother and I were together, and so many people were dependent on what we did to survive. You know, we didn't want to take anything for granted, we didn't want to let anybody down. So that kind of has gone me through my career. He says, top, because I was a master sergeant at the time. Actually, I was a master gunny. I was an A9, but he called me top. When the Common Ring Corps as a master gunny calls you top, you're a top. And top in military terms is in the listed ranks, there are nine pay grades. Once you hit E8, you're considered topped out because as you go up, the billets go down, right? So you're at the pyramid. And I, by the grace of God and everything, I became a master gunny. So he calls me up and says, You don't remember me, but I remember you. Like, why does this guy think so highly of me? I like keep talking, keep talking, keep talking. He says, Look, I'm over here at the White House, and I'm like, The White House? Because when the phone rang, there's four zeros. So anytime the White House calls, White House phone, the last four are all zeros. I'm like, Oh, okay. I could who are you? Oh sir, how you doing? And we just automatically go to the house. Who called you? Mike Chapman, Lieutenant Chapman.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Oh, the the assistant to the assistant to the chapter.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Yeah, because he left, and when he left, he went to the White House. But when I first got on the staff of the Commandant, General Jones had a leather book. And then this leather book had Abraham Lincoln's signature and other unique signatures. And one of the first things I was tasked with was to get this book signed by President Clinton. And I'm like, laid on my lap and my God. So we sat down, we wrote a letter, and Colonel Halick was the MILSEC, had was served with Danny Donnelly's husband who died of cancer. But there was a relationship there. So he put me in contact with Danny Donnelly, wrote a letter, I delivered it to the White House, the White House military office in the East Wing. And this was when I first got to the Commandant's office in March of 2020. Okay. And I would call her every now and how we doing on the letter, how are we doing on this? Because the book was in the safe.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

In the safe behind the Middlesex desk near the Commandant. And uh so I started having a relationship with someone at the White House, unknowingly to me. So Bill Clinton's last day in office, I get a phone call from Danny Donnell. I think I can get your book signed. How soon can you get over here? I'm like, oh my God. I said half hour. So I go to the mill sick. I said, sir, Danny Donnelly just called me. She says she can get the book signed. He says, get the driver, hands me the book. He says, so the driver drives me to the White House, drops me off. Danny has all my stuff to get me in. And I just have the consciousness to grab this signature tab. I get this tab. I'm like, hmm, this looks like a good spot. Bill Clinton's signatures are on this page, right? So I put the tab there, go in there. Get in there, meet Danny Donnelly, go across the hall. It's his last day in office. Everything's torn apart. There's there's meetings going on. And I'm like, I just want this book signed, mission accomplished. Get me out of here. So they have a meeting, everybody leaves, pictures are off the wall, and everything. And I'm standing there, and Danny Donnelly's by the door, and the secretary's right here, and I can see the president with a resolute desk and two putters going up like this by the desk. And Danny's waving me to come. I said, Just get the book signed. I don't need to see anybody. Get the book signed. She says, Come here.

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

So I walk in, I got the book. She hands me the book. I walk in. And being in the Commandant's office for three years, I know the brush, the telephone rings. You look over your shoulder, they're waving in, right? So he he said, What we got here? And there's somebody sitting across the desk from him. And uh this Bill Clinton says this. This Bill Clinton, yeah, setting this right. And uh he opens the book up and and he says, Oh, this is really interesting. I said, Yes, sir, it's General Jones's heirloom. It's over 200 years old. He sees his signatures. He said, Where would you like me to sign? I said, Sir, it's the it's the president's prerogative. He looks at the thing and he says, Oh, I don't like this page. And I start giggling to myself because that's where Bill Clinton or uh President Bush, 41, with signature was, right? I'm like, so childish. So he flips the page over and he starts to sign the signature, right? But the pen doesn't work. And he says, I thought you got this pen filled. And she comes back with it is filled. I'm like, God.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Oh, like he said it's his dad.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

And it's his secretary, first secretary, right? And I'm like, Wow, you just told him where to go, basically. And I'm standing there in parade rest, paralyzed.

unknown 25:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

And he starts writing, and she comes in with a camera. He said, No, no, we'll get a photographer. And she takes a picture anyway. And I'm standing there parade rest like this. You can see I got a phone right here. It's got the number on it, you know, from the work. And um he starts signing it, and then the phone rings. And she has a sec deaf on the phone, Secretary Cohen. Sec def on the Secretary Cohen on the phone for you. He picks up the phone and he swivels on a chair to look out into the South Lawn. Uh-huh. And I look over my shoulder and I'm getting the wave off. You're done. Grab your book. Book sign. I'm out. I'm like, man, what has happened? Right? So me and Danny, because we're we're it takes like two hours, and me and Danny Donnelly are in the in the um diplomatic, not the um cabinet room. It's all torn down and everything, and we're just having these awesome conversations about our families and life and everything. And so she gets to know who I am a little bit. I get out of the White House, I got the government phone, I call everybody I know. Nobody answers the phone.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

I'm like, I just got out of the White House.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

I'm with the president of the United States, I can't tell anybody. Yeah. And I go back to the office of man, I'm on fire.

unknown 26:52

Like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

That was interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

So then you fast forward to when that White House experience and then get an idea of what it's like there. When Lieutenant Chapman gives me a phone call and says, hey, think it over with your wife. But I think you've worked hard, you come here and you'll be here at seven o'clock, you leave at three. Last easy three years of your life. You've earned it. I said, I don't know if I've earned it or not, but that sounds really appealing. So I go home and talk to Teresa and we say, Let's do this. Don't tell anybody, Millet doesn't know, Millsec doesn't know, nobody knows. So what happens? The White House sends a by name request for Master Gunnery Sardard Dunning to appear at the White House for an interview for the senior list advisor position at the White House. And I'm like, I'm grappling. Well, how do I do this? Because I'm like, I'm like chicken daddy, right? And I'm a grown man.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Are you afraid they're gonna be mad at you?

SPEAKER_00 27:51

I have no idea. You know, I've never, this isn't the first time in my life I heard anything like this, right? So the new Mill Sec was a beautiful, amazing leader. I mean, he was just, you never rattled him. I can't remember his name. But he comes across the hall and everybody's gone. It's like 6:30 in the evening, and we're just waiting for the Commandant to get ready to pull chalks to go back to the house with the driver. He walks in and I see this piece of paper in his hand. He said, Hey Top, I got a letter here from the White House with your name on it. Do you know anything about it? And I'm like, Oh, I felt so I don't know how you can describe it, unprofessional. I said, Yes, sir, I know all about it. He says, Come on to my office, let's talk about it. Because on the staff of the Commandant, all the officers are taken care of. The next duty station, because it's it's it's it's demanding duty. Yeah, it's almost zero mentality. And I've been there for three years. Almost four, because they're having a hard time finding somebody in my pay grade that wants to be in their Twilight Tour to come there and never see their family for three years and just be brutalized with the hours and the stress that comes with it and everything. So he says, because this billet by name was uh over billet, which means the Marine Corps is gonna lose a master gunny that goes to the White House. So that means they had to absorb that billet, it's kind of manpower stuff. Yeah. So they say, um, yeah, well, what we he's worked hard. We need to do this, do it right. So they approved for me to go over there and have the interview, go through the interview process, which was just mind-blowing, totally mind-blowing experience. Because to go to the White House, you have to be interviewed, then you have to go. It it takes a year to get to security clearance.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Yeah, they interviewed my mom because my mom called me and said, Hey, I think your dad's in trouble. And I said, What do you mean what are you talking about? She said, Yeah, two FBI agents showed up here, asked me a bunch of questions about my marriage to your dad. Yeah, but I didn't know. Yeah, I was like, Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Now that's that's part of it. That's why it takes long. They got to go out and and you know, people they review your credit report. Um, and if you ever think anything in your life is expunged, it's not. I know that not by me, my own life, but by my association there, that it's not. Nothing is expunged when it comes to presidential support duty. So so I continue to go on the Commandant, and um because when we when I got signed to Commandant, I knew we were gonna be there, so we had a house built. And the house built was 30 miles away, and so when I left Quantico, my commute would begin. I would get up at 3:30 in the morning, be on the road, be at the bus stop by 4:30, so I could be in DC by 5:30 corridor six at the Pentagon, and everything was on public transportation, but everybody was wearing a suit, or you know, I would change in the Pentagon. But then when I left the Pentagon to went to the White House, it was roses for like a week. Everything was just like he told me. Hey, I get there, I'm there at 8 o'clock, and I'm leaving at 3:30, 4 o'clock. Life's great. I even got a place to park. I'm park on the East Exec on the White House comp complex. It's great. Somebody gets fired. What happens to Mike Chapman? He takes this person's job in the food service. No experience whatsoever, but he goes over, he's so diverse. So, what happens to me? I'm elevated to be the director of administration, the senior listed advisor, and another one of my duties was to assist the White House ceremonies coordinator, which was a really cool experience. So, all these ceremonies you see at the White House, the White House Military Office works in concert with the Usher's office. The Usher is the one that manages the house. So we work closely with them, bringing in troops. And when you see all these ceremonies at the White House where they got all these soldiers, 99% of them, that's probably the first time there. You know, we bring them on rehearsal and everything, but that's probably the first time they've ever been there. So, you know, and things can go wrong. Things do go wrong, but thank God nobody sees it. I saw a lot that went wrong.

unknown 32:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Like one guy locked his legs and fell down. It was terrible.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

You told me a story one time that you were there's always a countdown, and you were talking about you were standing at the door and you lost track. You're like, what's the count? What's the count? And then President Bush leaned over and gave you the count.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

So what way it works, where this this quick real quick story is they have a uh like Putin would come to the White House and they'd have a joint press conference in the East Wing. Well, we'd have all the troops in there, and the collars would be behind the door at the um dining room, you know, and uh the doors would be shut. And you have a guy from White House Communication Agency that would have a microphone, and there's always a two-minute warning. And the two-minute warning was, ladies and gentlemen, please click turn off all cell phones and pagers. Well, when that happened, we'd look at our watch and we'd wait for 30 seconds. And when the 30 seconds hit, there were two guys, two soul military persons standing by this door. And when we told them now, through a little crack, they would open the door. Yeah, and then the president and the head of the other country would would come out and walk down the hall. Well, this was my like my second time doing this, and I could see my shirt just going like this from my heart. I just saw Putin go by me like, oh my gosh, you were standing there, and you know, we're civilian clothes, because the only one that wore a military uniform would be the military aide, because our uniform was suit and tie.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Oh wow, so you're military personnel, but yeah, everybody there's wearing suit and tie, unless they're military aide or something else is going on.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

So Max looks at me and says, Did you hear the two-minute warning? And I mean, I'm paralyzed. I don't hear anything. So Max goes around the door to the Waka guy and says, Hey, did you give the two-minute warning? President Bush, standing right there, grabs Max and says, About 30 seconds ago. Max comes around the corner, says some blankety blank, and I'm like, kidding me, you're cussing? Opens the door and says, now. I'm like, wow. And then years down the road, I did that myself. Max would be on vacation or whatnot, and I would do that. Another quick caveat is a lot of things we did in the White House with ceremonies. We would go there and we'd bring all the social aids in that would help core doom people and do all these things. But once the once the event is moving, we would go back to our office in the East Wing, First Lady's office across from us, and then we were across the hall from her. And there's this great big TV over the door. So we would watch the television and see and just keep our eye on the TV. And when we saw it was getting ready to break up, we'd go back across Lower Cross Hall to wherever the event was and get ready to start breaking everything down and getting troops out and all that. So it was really cool, you know. I remember back in the 80s when they talked about 24-7 news where people in DOD would get their news from CNN and whatnot. And here we are watching television, letting us know when we got to go back to retreat. That was pretty cool. Man, that's uh yeah, it's pretty uh it was uh it was unique, and again, when someone got fired, my hours went from something decent to I was there at five o'clock in the mornings, 5 30 till 7, 8 o'clock at night, or sometimes 4, but I was on a bus. Yeah, and you know, bus was brutal. It was always a two-hour ride, three-hour ride. If somebody had a flat tire on 95, it was bad. Sometimes you wouldn't get home until 7, 8 o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

So you're at the to me, this is fine. You're at the highest level of your career, you're working around leaders and heads of states, and you know, the leader of Russia and the leader of the US, and you're sitting on at the end of the day, you're on a bus.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

I'm not really working with anybody, I'm just facilitating the yeah, but you're within we have our close by.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

Yeah, the the the the highest person I worked with is like a general manager, you know what I mean? So to me, that's you know, it's just funny to think that you're doing these things and that you have this amazing career, and at the end of the night, you're sitting on a bus just riding, watching YouTube videos and learning. The little photography. So stellar career, right? Went 30 years. Did all kinds of combat arms, went to war. Um the um what's that, the Marine Corps headquarters, the Pentagon, White House. Okay. 30 years, you have a a marriage, right? And you're you guys are happily married. Obviously, I mean, there's probably times where Teresa acted like a maniac and you had to calm her down or whatever. No, or vice versa. But anyway, so you retire, and you guys decide so you don't live in DC, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:29

No, we live in Virginia.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Okay, well, you don't live in Virginia anymore.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Well, I retired from the Marine Corps there, and then from there they liked what I did, and they brought me on, and I worked in the White House Military Office Security Directorate for another 14 years. So I was in the White House from 20, 2004. Oh man, I guess it wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

I didn't realize you were forgive me, I'm not a very good son, but I didn't I thought you got out of the White House and spent like a year and then retired.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

I didn't know you No, I I retired from the Marine Corps and then immediately went into the White House military office security director. Same clearance, same access, same everything, except I was no longer active duty. I could grow my hair and say yo to anybody that was an officer.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

That had to be cool.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

That was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Well, my advantage was as your son, is I got to come visit the White House, got to see the East Wing, got to sit at uh Laura Bush's desk, got to sign that um book. That's a visitor's book. The visitor's book that, but not like everybody gets to sign that. We got to sign that. Uh my wife now, she's my girlfriend at the time. She, you know, she got to sign that and uh got to see the West Wing. And then my kids, I got to bring my children to that's one of the benefits of uh being the sign there is you can give White House tours and um West Wing tours if you're you know well what's funny is uh the very first time we go, it's Patty, myself, Teresa. We walk in and we're walking down the sidewalk, and you turn to me and you go, pull your badges out, which we had our badges in front of us, and okay, you said, Listen, we're gonna step over this chain, we're gonna walk across this yard, we're gonna step in that door, don't do anything stupid. And I'm like, What am I what am I gonna do? And I go, why? And you point down, you see that guy with a gun, they shoot questions and ask, or they shoot first and ask questions.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

I think there's some ad lib going there, but he's doing a great job.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Not ad lib, that's what you told us. And so we stepped over this chain and we walked in this door, and when we did, tours were coming through, and we opened the door and walk in and pretty much free reign. It was it was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

I did a lot of tours and I learned a lot about the White House because you know, when the director would entertain people, I would do that. And one of the benefits I had by having a uh I was a blue pass holder, which meant full access. Um, people would show up with purses, and you're not supposed to have a purse, you're not supposed to have anything. So I would grab their purses and take them back to my office in the East Wing. And you got Secret Service right there and all over, right? And they used to bust on me all the time. Hey Top, you got another purse, do you? You know, I'd be like, Hey, you know, it takes a real man to carry a pink purse. Well that stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

It's this is a funny story I always tell. So we bring the kids for for a tour, and we go into the White House to that little security bunker out front, and they're like, You guys can't have this stuff. And we had to dress up, right? So I'm like in dress pants and a dress shirt, and the kids are dressed decent, Patty's dressed up, and uh Teresa's dressed up, and so he's like, You can't have this stuff. So I said, Hey, I'll take this stuff to the car, and if I get back and you guys are already in there, no problem, I've been through the White House twice. Okay, so I leave out that and I start walking. Well, I want to see my kids go through the White House, so I start running. And what's funny about that is I'm running down the street in uh in dress clothes, and people see me running from the White House, and people on the street are going, What's going on? You know, because here's a guy dressed up running down the street from the White House, and I'm just putting I open the truck and I put it back in and I run back, but I can I never forget all the people that were going, Where's he, what's going on? Why is this guy in this stupid running? You know, so that was that was fun. But anyway, so now you decide to retire 14 years, so you had an amazing career as a uh uh Marine, and then you had another almost 14-year career doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Very blessed, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

And I we got to come out and visit you during that time and um got some advantages that and and you had a beautiful home. Man, amazing home. But you decide to move to Tennessee.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

I'd like to tell one quick story. We got when I retired from from the Marine Corps, my uncle Don, who's a lawyer, he's in there and he's got polio. And he says, Rick, I got a question for you. The whole family's in our house, friends. He says, How does a kid from Albany, Indiana, high school dropout, served 30 years in the Marine Corps and retired from the White House? What was your secret to success? Totally dumbfounded. I looked at him, I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe you said that. You know, first thing was I'm not a high school dropout any longer, and I got a college degree. So he's seen that I was perplexed. He says, I'll tell you what my secret was to success. Polio. He said, Had I not got polio, bro? We're not supposed to be crying right now. There's moments in life that really pull on you, and that this is one of them. He said, Hadn't I got polio? I don't know what I do, but I realized early on that I need to get an education to be able to thin for myself. And it was like God dropped this right, like right on my heart. I said, Don, my secret to sex, success is being a dad at 16. Blew Uncle Don's mind. He said, Brad is my secret to success. And his mother. And it just like shut him up. I'm working in the steakhouse, people are out in the back smoking marijuana, having a good time planning parties and whatnot. I gotta pay the rent, or excuse me, pay the bills, food, and go back and forth to school. I can't partake in any of that stuff because I have responsibilities as a 16-year-old. And then then a 17-year-old with a child. If I hadn't been rooted in those responsibilities, who knows where I would be? So my whole thing is being a dad at 16. That was such at the time it was it was a nightmare, and a nightmare in a in a horrifying sense, a nightmare in a oh my god, I'm clearly out of my pay grade. And it's in a whole life, you know, I hear people say. Oh, I made a mistake. Like, oh my God, you have no idea. You just missed the blessing. And you are. You've been an amazing blessing. Although you have an awful lot on my brother's characteristics. I mean, I've long said you've got his charm, you've got his wit.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

I've long said I look like you and act like him.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Yeah, but that was that was it. And another thing is, and and you're probably watching this wondering, well, how do these things happen? Well, God's center. Even if you don't know it, he's there because he loves us. But the biggest thing, my thing, was my reputation. Because I'd been around so many people throughout my life that would say one thing and do another. And I thought, man, if you if you don't have a reputation, if you don't have credibility, you have nothing. They can take everything away from you, but they can't take your reputation. And when I interviewed for the Commandant's job, I kind of tried to articulate that. I says, What about Rick Dunnock? I said, Rick Dunnock is you tell me to do something, I know you know that I know you know I'm going to get it done. Now, if you can follow that, you know where I'm coming from. But basically, what it was saying, you give me some do, it's going to get done.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Yeah, when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Legally.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

Legally. Well, from the time I was a little kid, you you made me read the book, uh, Go Get her.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

Yep, go get her. Go get her.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

And then later on, you told me about one called Message to Garcia. Yeah, which I read too.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Yeah, I think every lieutenant in the Marine Corps has that's the first book they have to read is Message to Garcia. So I know Brad's on time.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

Well, we're good. And uh well, we gotta talk about it. Now we're gonna move into I it's just the episode's just gonna go a little long.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

I'm trying to hijack his show and he's stomping me.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

No, you're good, but we're gonna now we're gonna talk about you moved to Tennessee. That's right, right? Yep. Uh, and so now you're living in Tennessee, but you're not churchgoers, you don't go to church.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

We went to church off and on, and we found ourselves when in DC, we were doing more checking out what people are wearing than we were the message, and it was very formal. So we retire, we go to Tennessee, and we have this calling like we need to get back to God.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

There's something inside you saying, hey.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

I mean, just look around what's taking place. We all have a baseline knowledge of scripture, and you can see things are starting to manifest themselves in that respect. And we, you know, we need Christ in our lives. So we go to a couple churches, and I'm a front row guy because I was in the Marine Corps and I'm a slow learner. I gotta get right up front. So a couple churches, I think I intimidated the pastor because I was right up there, man. And the church was dead, 13, 14 people. And then I go to another church and we pull in the parking lot, and no one even acknowledges us, no one waves, nobody does nothing. Another God moment, he don't want me going there. So we pull out the parking lot because their church is over. I misread the time. I thought it was starting at 11 and it was done at 11. 11. So we're talking, Teresa and I are like, we we need to find a church, not for the function of church, but the function of a relationship with Jesus. So Teresa finds a cowboy church and she starts reading me the bio. He's a singer, he's this, he's that.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

The pastor you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Pastor Bat. Yeah, this is this sounds really something that's good. And uh, we have a guy named Steve Valise who is our does our um pesticide around the house. He goes to this church, never mentioned it. Nothing, nothing bad of him. We never had a conversation that that would ever come up. Right. It was very quick. Here, I pay you, boom, boom, boom. So we show up, and I'm like, this is beautiful. It's out in the country, everybody's friendly. We're not even at the door yet. And as we start getting to the door, here comes Steve around the corner. He says, Whoa, Rick, how you doing?

SPEAKER_01 48:02

I'm like, Steve, who knew?

SPEAKER_00 48:05

He says, I want you to know one thing, we're we're different church. I said, I'm all about different church. We walk in this church and we were filled. Unbelievable. And I've been watching the RB theme and you know sermons, and Pastor Tim, who is younger than you. I love this man. He's up there. We sing, we praise, we pray, we worship, we have the altar call, we have a prayer team, we have all kinds of evangelists going on with the horse shows and all these things, and we're very active in that. And um, we go, we're leaving, we're on a trip one time. So to become a member, you have to be there six months. So we're on the road. I'm on I'm on YouTube, I'm on Facebook. Boom. Praise God, praise God, boom, boom, boom. Right. We come back four or five months later and we sign up for new members' classes. You gotta be here six months, and and we we know the pastor, and you know, we talk to him, Jen, this is his wife, Jen. I've not been here six months, but I've been here six months via YouTube. She says, Rick, we got you. We understand, right? So we become members, and everybody that comes in this church is like, I found home.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Teresa said that to me when I was talking to her about it, and she said, I walked in, and I think her exact words were, these are my people.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

Oh, absolutely. It it's it's it's amazing. It's Crossroads Cowboy Church in Greenville, Tennessee. Uh, we're expanding. While we were on our last trip, Pastor Tim was up, and he was talking to because they they the first service at nine, the second one's at 11, and they YouTube the second service. And Tim is telling the people to come to the first service if you can. Because we're about to go to three services, because there's so many people coming to this church. We and it's it's amazing to watch it uh develop into what it is. It started in a barn ten years ago, maybe 11 now. Tim's father is uh a businessman in Pennsylvania, Caddenary, and Tim was being groomed. And this is part of the story that was attraction for us, was being groomed to take over the business, multi-million dollar business. And Tim on his heart, his whole life, God told him to come to East Tennessee and start a church. He was obedient. Praise God he's obedient because through his ministry and his obedience to God, a lot of people are coming to Christ, full throttle. So he he comes down here and they come to Greenville, and there's like, there's 234 churches. Why am I here? Why am I here? There's too many churches.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Be still obedient. And from the from the barn, it's like nobody's gonna show up, you know, and it just continues to build and build and build. And you know, you you you can't come to Tim and say, Man, you're great, you're amazing. He deflects every every compliment. It's all God, it's all God. You know, and and it's just like, no, you don't understand. You he'll get up there and preaching. He's I'm preaching to myself. And his favorite line is that's good preaching. That's good preaching. I get an Amen, amen. You know? And uh that's just so when we travel, I travel with with my card so people can kind of follow what we're doing on our travels. And I always try to give out our church card because on the back of our church card you can scan it and you and YouTube it and watch the service. And right now we are in the process of expanding because we don't our church owes nobody nothing, and there's never talk of tiding, there's no there's no full pass, none of that. It's all online, and we have a church app that you can do that through as well. Yeah, yeah. But the main thing is is can you know bringing people to Christ. And we started a podcast, and it's called the uh I don't know. I I watch it online I'm bombing.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

I I watch it.

SPEAKER_00 52:12

Well, people it's people tell their their story to the cross, okay, which is good.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Um they they kind of copied our our thing, but whatever. I'm just I'm just kidding. That that's not true. They didn't copy us.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

So that's kind of the nutshell is for me a lot of adversity, and thank God for everything that was ever wrong, you know, everything that happened in my childhood that we talked about earlier was a blessing. The time it was like, what, why, what am I doing wrong? But I kept looking in the positive light, and you know, I don't know why I've been blessed, and I always kept trying to figure out what is my um my what's God gift to me besides a beautiful, handsome, devilish little son here, and other children as well, and wife, and for life is photography. So, you know, we first got to the church, and they're gonna have we have camo sundae. We I mean we we are a good church, a lot of we do a lot of things, and uh they were having a camo sundae, and I'm like, this is awesome. We put our camis on and you know, duck calling stuff and get up there and get a picture, and I'm there and I'm I'm watching what's happening, and some person gets up in front and takes a iPhone picture. I'm like, oh, I got this one, I can do better than this. So from that, I kind of like, hey, I'd love to be the photographer. So I I do the shoots and whatnot. And uh from that, people think I'm a wedding photographer. So I've been asked to do weddings, and um I do it because that's a gift from God, and if they would pay to have a photographer, it would be an awful lot of money. Yeah, so that's one of my things I do is I love talking, I love catching special moments. And if you go to the website that I have, which is easy, Rick Dunnock Photo, I have a gallery called Church Activities, and um we have baptisms and horse shows and all kinds of things that I have in there to document. And we also have a church expansion where we're we moved a house. I did a video on that. We moved a house and we're we're expanding and we're we're we're prepping the property. We also have a co-op where people homeschool and they come to the church on Tuesday and they have class, Bible study, ironwork, woodworking, motors, history, play, you know, all the things that you would get in a public school, except it's Bible-based and it's a very loving church. And um, we're just so thankful that that Teresa said, You need to retire. And like I got on board and said, Okay, and we went to East Tennessee. We found our house. Rela didn't help us find our house. We were we were floundering trying to find a house, and we just started driving around, and we come down this one road, beautiful road, and there's the house. I said, This is the house. God led us there.

SPEAKER_02 55:17

Yeah, it's a and it's the it's a beautiful home, very beautiful home.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Yeah, we're we're we're blessed.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

One thing about your website though, I wanted to throw in there is you you have it's not a critique, like you have stuff for our family, you got stuff from your church, but you also have these amazing landscape, uh, you know, mountain views, waterfalls, waterfalls, sunset, amazing uh pictures that are are amazing. So if you get the opportunity, look up rickdunnockphotos.com.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

No singular rick dunnock photo.

SPEAKER_02 55:48

Rick Dunnock Photo. I have it saved on my computer so that I don't have to type it in. I just it's on my my favorite bar.

SPEAKER_00 55:56

But um like I the secret to taking a good photo, I tell everybody this because Dave Allen, who was one of my mentors early on, said the secret to taking a good photo is stand in front of something pretty. That's the secret. Stand in front of something pretty, stand in front of profound. Yeah, I thought it was.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

I like it. A lot better than I I thought it was gonna be something. That's pretty cool. Um, but long life of ups and downs, uh situations. All blessings, all blessings, yeah. All blessings. You're now uh attending this church and you're traveling the country and we're trying to minister while we're on the road.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

Yeah, people come up to us, you know. Um we pray for some people while on the road. I really like doing that, but as we we we uh pray for us because we we're we're close when we're in our church family, and then as we get away, the devil starts creeping in. You know, we're not reading as much, we're not doing as much. So here's another thing you might want to try out. Our church at 1111, our alarms go off and we pray. Our church prays every day at 1111.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

AM 1111 a.m.

unknown 57:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

Yeah, real quick, we were attending cowboy church during Thanksgiving in Sedona, Arizona, and the time changed. We're sitting there and it's a great service. All of a sudden, my telephone goes off, and the guy that's the substitute pastor is berating me, like, don't pay attention to him. My phone's going off because it's 1111. It's 1111 in Tennessee. Yeah, it's not 1111 in Sedona, Arizona. And I was like, oh no, I need to write this right now. And I'm like, wait a minute, right in the middle of his sermon. Our church prays at 1111. That's why my phone's going off. I'm so sorry for getting me.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

Well, you said that in the service?

SPEAKER_00 57:47

I sure did. Wow, yeah. Then he came back to me and said, dismiss the service. Why? Because he was military, retired, Vietnam vet, probably 84, 85 years old. He tells me to dismiss the service. Well, I'm back. I flipped the military. I like served three bags full of mouth things and go. And Trecia says, I don't think it's what he meant.

SPEAKER_02 58:06

I think that pretty bad.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Yeah, yeah. I got on board. I'm like, oh my God. The dunning, another dunning moment. So it was like that was really. I'm sure God got a chuckle out of that.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

Well, I think he has a sense of humor.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Oh, look at that.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

He created us, right? But uh thank you very much. Uh like I heard some things today I'd never heard before, and and uh I wish we had uh another 14 days to just hang out and talk and and and spend time together. Uh, but I I do appreciate your time. I know you guys got to get on the road.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

And uh, this is important.

SPEAKER_02 58:39

Um man, I I just uh you and I are growing together spiritually, not like together together, but you're growing in your so when we talk, we talk about the Bible, we talk about faith, we talk about what's going on in our lives, and uh the knowing that one day I'll be in heaven and you'll be there is a great feeling. You know, I I hope my children and grandchildren and yeah, as do I, and as do we. Uh my mother is saved, so her and I talk about faith and and uh being a believer of Jesus and and a father.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

Yeah, when your mother got saved, we were in apartments in Muncie, Indiana, and she came in and she said, I have this river flowing through me. Never forget it.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

Well, my mom shared with me that she's she's a pretty spiritual person, but my mom actually, where she got serious about her faith was I was working at a Baptist church as a youth leader, and we we put on a community-wide revival, and I my mom came with us one night and she got saved down down there at that, and like really got serious about her faith. So just it interesting that even in my life, you know, the things that happened with my uncle, and and you know, life was yet tough as a kid. That even that I have fingerprints of God. And I didn't know that my parents had fingerprints of God through their lives. You know what I mean? As a young man, when we talk about things, we you tell me cool stories, right? Because you're dad and your Marine, you know, you talk about the cool stuff that was going on in the Marine Corps, but we never really had faith-based conversations until now. And it took 51 years for for me, and however, you know, you're 16 years older, so it for you. But I thank God every day for the relationship that we have now.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

Oh, yeah, it's such a blessing. And you know, I kind of like my dad. You know, dad would say, I have four kids and they have no reason to love me, but they would love me without reservation. And I'm like, You have no reason to love me, and but you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:39

Well, something that's gonna say, yeah. I I was gonna make that joke about hey dad, thanks for uh Yeah, I know I tried that on my dad.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

I know you told me it was stupid. Yeah, dad was not very pleased with that. I'm like, oh, I hear this part.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

You know, at that time you you guys could have gotten an abortion or you could have just whatever, and you didn't. And uh although we didn't spend a lot of time together when I was a kid, uh, you know, you were you were there, you know what I mean? Uh especially when I got in the army, I I communicated with you a lot and you taught me Yeah, we talked a lot of leadership. We talked a lot, a lot of leadership, and you taught me some things about being a and I was out to lunch as a a young man, I was clueless, and and most of what you taught me I use now today, uh, not so much at at that time because I was just a lunatic.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

But um leadership is a constant learning experience, you don't ever master leadership, it's just constantly evolving, and the environment changes your style and everything. Um, just like your walk with Christ, I think it took this long to get here because I wasn't ready. And you probably weren't ready to and you I learned a lot from you. I mean your your Bible knowledge is amazing. I wing it, you know, and and uh it's just and there's so much going on right now, and I just want everybody, there's a lot of things coming out, and just remember deception, just get in the word because it's coming. We all know what's coming because we've read the book, we know the outcome. So don't have fear, just trust in the Lord and read the book, and when you see things that aren't in line with the gospel, know that it's not the gospel, it's demonic.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:27

Well, with that, so I always use this example, right? When counterfeiters are the guys that work trying to break up counterfeit rings, and they don't study like all the way it's counterfeited, they study the dollar bill, so that they know a dollar bill. So the moment a counterfeit's held up, they can recognize it because they know the original so well. That's why it's so important to know the word and read the Bible so that when people start speaking, because a lot of people can make it sound like the Bible, and it's not. So you need to know the word so that when things do happen and deception comes and uh the world kind of goes to hell in a handbasket, you can recognize truth over false.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:07

You know, if you're reading the word and you don't understand it, Pastor Tim says, keep reading, keep reading, keep reading. Sooner or later the Holy Spirit's gonna reveal it to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:15

I was gonna say and pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what's going on. It says it's got, you know, scriptures, God breathed, right? So it's um it's living and active, it's sharper than any two-edged sword. So, you know, reading a book is great, but when you read the Bible, it's a it's alive, it's active, especially if you're in tune with the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

Your first breath and your last breath are the name of the Lord Yahweh. I just watched a video on that yesterday.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

So your first and your last.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna unfortunately end this here and uh uh say goodbye. And uh this is where I'm gonna get choked up, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:55

Um but before we do that, I just want to thank your audience. I want to thank you so much for being a supporter of Brad, what he's doing. It's it takes a lot of courage to do what he's doing, it takes a lot of courage to set across from him because he's a much better man than I am, and that's the way it's supposed to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:10

I'm like literally half of you.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:12

He's half of DNA.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

And I'm the other half of my Randy.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:16

I'm gonna smack your Uncle Randy. But this has been it's been a great being here. I would have liked to have gotten a lot more personal, but not for your audience, because I think there's things that would really be beneficial for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:27

I think we need I think you need to come back and we need to record again, but not for battleground believers for our family, yeah. My brothers, my sisters, um, and our grandkids so that one day they can watch that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

Yeah, if you're if you're a young adult, child of someone, parents are still there, pray with your mother and father. I my greatest regret is I wasn't where I'm at right now. I lost my father and three years ago, and I remember putting him in bed one night. He was in hospice, he knew he was dying, we all knew he was dying, and he accepted it. And I put him in bed one night, and I just I just said, Dad, do you ever talk to Jesus? He looked at me indignant. I couldn't tell if I was like, that's the dumbest question you've ever asked me. And there's a lot of them. Or what do you mean? But I would have loved to sit there and put my hands on my father and pray.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:25

He died as a Christian though, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:27

He did.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:27

Yeah, he was a believer.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:29

Which is crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:30

I never I never experienced my grandpa on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

One of the stories told is that dad was in the front room. We would we'd left, we were gonna take dad and Linda back to Pam uh Panama City in November. We were headed to Colorado. And uh dad would sit in the front room in his wheelchair crying, and Linda would say, come in and say, Richard, what what's wrong? He says, I want to go home. And Linda would say, Richard, you are home. And dad would say, No, I want to be with Jesus. You go to a Christian. Funeral, and then you go to a non-believer funeral, and you can see the difference. Dad's funeral was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

We watch it on TV.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

So I gave your Uncle Randy a great segue. I called him uh uh foster parent or foster child.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:17

Yeah, I remember yeah, I remember because I was like, but anyway, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna wind this down so you guys can get on the road. And and uh I know Teresa's chomping at the bit, I can see it in her face.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

Little humor.

unknown 1:06:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

See, I wish I was as cool as you uh you hate Brad made me do this, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:35

Yeah, did you see how I forced his hand to pick that up and put those on? Anyway, Battleground Believers, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much. This episode went really long, but I felt like the way the conversation was going that uh we needed to get all this information. Um man, thanks. Well, I love you so much, Teresa. Thank you so much for being the producer and and allowing us this time together.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

And um, Cheryl, if you are watching, oh man, you did an amazing job with this young man. Seriously, amazing, and all the people that were in your life when I wasn't around.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:09

Well, you know, I'm I was gonna say, yeah, I'm something special, you know. And the morning I get up my piss excellence. Anyway, well, we better cut this off before it's all yours. Yeah, no, yeah, my mom wouldn't. That's not for my mother. That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:26

Well, God is good.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:27

Battleground believers, thank you so much. Like, share, subscribe. Um, and uh thank you for being part of the audience. Battleground believers, ow.