Wrestler, Drill Sergeant, Contractor, Lawyer: The Unstoppable Path of Relentless Effort

In this episode of Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You, Kathleen flies solo to sit down with an Army Reservist whose career reads like a masterclass in relentless effort and reinvention. From active-duty tanker and All-Army wrestler to Iraq deployment as an embedded advisor, drill sergeant, roofing/construction business owner, and now equity partner at a law firm, Anthony "Tony" Kuhn shares the twists, setbacks, and hard-won lessons that shaped his path. Hear how a near-miss with the Buffalo Police Department became the spark for law school, why he still credits military work ethic as his biggest edge, and what he’s looking forward to most as retirement nears. This story is packed with practical wisdom for anyone facing transition: do the work, push your comfort zone, and never stop moving forward.

Chapters

• 01:52 – Tony’s Early Active Duty Days
• 03:31 – First Civilian Pivot: Roofing, Re-Enlisting as a Drill Sergeant
• 05:25 – The Windy Road: Construction, Iraq Deployment, Starting His Own Company
• 05:59 – Embedded Advisor in Iraq, Family Impact, Police Dream Derailed, Pivot to Law
• 11:23 – Top Tip: Be the Hardest-Working Person in the Room
• 12:47 – Military Experiences That Prepared Tony for Law
• 14:49 – Inner Tools: Time Never Stops, Push Your Comfort Zone
• 17:14 – Retirement on the Horizon: Reclaiming Family Time After Years of Sacrifice

Key Takeaways

• Lean Into Your Military Work Ethic: The single most universal advantage veterans bring to any civilian role is a rock-solid work ethic. Show up ready to outwork the room, and doors will open—whether you start your own business or join an established one.
• Push Your Comfort Zone Relentlessly: Growth happens outside what feels safe. From wrestling injuries to writing SOPs in Iraq, to launching a veterans law practicum, stepping into discomfort led to extraordinary rewards for Tony.
• Time Never Stops—Neither Should You: When adversity hits, remember the clock keeps ticking. Hang on one more second, one more minute—perseverance compounds.
• Military Skills Translate Farther Than You Think: Leadership under pressure, teaching troops, managing teams in chaos, and self-taught business development all became tools for success in law and beyond for Tony. Don’t sell your experience short.

Follow us for more real veteran stories to guide your transition, and share this episode with a service member who needs a reminder that relentless effort pays off. Until next time, keep pushing—your Exit Buddy is right here with you.

#VeteranStories #MilitaryTransition #ExitBuddy

Resources & Links

Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, Exit Buddy: Veteran Voices, to stay updated and connect with other listeners and guests.

Check out Tony's previous appearance on Security Cleared Jobs: Who’s Hiring & How to hear his legal advice for security-cleared military personnel.

Visit us at https://exitbuddy.buzzsprout.com to learn more about the show.

Have feedback or questions for us? Email us at ashleyjones.creative@gmail.com.

Transcript

Anthony Kuhn 00:00

I started college, and I was working towards getting my criminal justice degree. I got one semester away from completing my four-year degree when I got the call with three days' notice that I was going to deploy to Iraq on September 11, 2004. I was in the last semester there, trying to finish up my four-year degree, and then I deployed. By the time I got home, I had a two- and three-year-old son. They were one and two when I left. Now what? I had to pay the bills. I got to take care of my family.

Kathleen Smith 00:31

Welcome to Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You. This podcast shines a light on the real struggles and triumphs of veterans navigating life after the military.

Rachel Bozeman 00:41

In each episode, we dive into heartfelt stories of resilience, setbacks, a little humor, and growth as veterans transition and find new purpose in civilian life. And here for the journey, we're your hosts. I'm Rachel...

Kathleen Smith 00:55

...and I'm Kathleen. If you're looking for inspiration, practical advice, or just a reminder that you're not alone in your transition, Exit Buddy is here to help you thrive beyond the uniform. Enjoy today's story from our next honorary Exit Buddy. I'm Kathleen, and I'm flying solo today. My co-host Rachel is off doing other really phenomenal things, and I look forward to having her back in the studio soon. But it's great to see another familiar face in the studio. I'm joined by Anthony Kuhn—or we call him just Tony—an Army Reservist with a fascinating journey from tanker and All-Army wrestler to a law firm partner. I can't wait to learn more. Welcome to the show again, Tony.

Anthony Kuhn 01:40

Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure.

Kathleen Smith 01:42

So you joined the Army 29 years ago as a young man. What were the standout memories for you in those initial active duty years?

Anthony Kuhn 01:52

I think I was 18 years old, maybe 19, during my first real-world casualty situation—applying tourniquets and medevacking people out on helicopters. I had just completed the combat lifesaver course, and so I was a combat lifesaver on the scene. It was all very new back then. Again, I'm going back 28–29 years ago. Some interesting experiences there with those rotations in the National Training Center and living in the desert. As you mentioned, I was an All-Army wrestler in 1999. I got an opportunity to go—and after winning a couple post championships—got an opportunity to try out for the All-Army team in Fort Carson, Colorado. I was lucky enough to be one of maybe 14 or 17 of us that made the team. Spent the year there wrestling at the Olympic Training Center and at our gym there in Fort Carson. It was a good time. We traveled around the country. We got to wrestle in college tournaments and national-level tournaments. There was a regional championship in Wyoming, a tournament in Evanston, Illinois, a couple in Colorado Springs. It was a really good learning experience. Also learned that I'm not invincible, and I broke just about everything during that year—which is how I found my way back to being a tanker, because it was just too much. I think I was too young at the time, and my body just had a hard time adjusting. So I found my way back to being a tanker. And I actually got out of the Army there and got off active duty in 2000 after completing four years of active duty time. I was excited to get back to living life after spending eight months out of each year in the woods, it seemed like. It was nice to get back home and kind of be reintegrated back into society.

Kathleen Smith 03:31

One thing I never knew about you: being a wrestler. So tell us about your first transition back to civilian life when you got off active duty. At that point, did you plan to go through with the Reserves? Or how did you come to that decision, and how did you find your footing after you relocated?

Anthony Kuhn 03:48

I wasn't at the 10-year point of no return yet, so I thought I was out. I thought I was done. I did my four years. Actually, I did two two-year enlistments, and then I came home and I was done with the military. I was going to be a civilian. I was going to start a family. Some of those things happened pretty quickly, but I ran into a recruiter one day, and that recruiter said, "Hey, did you know that you can be in the Army Reserves and be a drill sergeant?" Of course, I didn't know that. Most people don't. I was a sergeant when I left active duty, so he and I struck up a conversation, and he talked me into getting back into the military. I joined a combat engineer drill sergeant unit, which I'm still a part of today. I've left that unit and then returned back to that unit with different promotions and positions. But I quickly signed back up and went to drill sergeant school and completed the Army's drill sergeant school. That was probably around the time that I realized I didn't really miss the Army. I missed being a tanker, but I was already locked back in by then. Came right home again. Made another really good friend who I'm still really close with today. He and I completed drill sergeant school together, along with some other schools—our combatives certifications, our Modern Army Combatives Program, which is our relatively new hand-to-hand program. He and I completed a bunch of those courses together and then immediately went down to Fort Leonard Wood and started pushing troops right after graduating drill sergeant school. I had the opportunity to do that for a few years thereafter. We would go down in the summertime—anywhere from just your 18 days to maybe the full summer—to augment active duty and push troops there, mostly combat engineers.

Kathleen Smith 05:25

So one thing that I love about having these conversations is that we really get to talk about the twists and turns in everyone's career, be that in the military or after the military. Your roadmap is very unique—like many of those we've got: roofing and construction to drill sergeant, and now you're a lawyer. You even considered being a police officer sometime along the way. So how did that sort of windy road end up being a legal career?

Anthony Kuhn 05:59

You're right. It was—I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I got off active duty the first time in 2000, and my cousin offered me an opportunity to jump in with a roofing crew. It was a job right off active duty. Back then, there were no resources like there are now. This is 25 years ago, before the Iraq War, before Afghanistan. There wasn't much going on. The military had downsized quite a bit in the '90s following Desert Storm, and there really weren't many resources for people getting off active duty. In fact, there are cycles, ebbs and flows with how much society even cares about the military or is excited about the military. Right now, we're still in a good place. People appreciate the military because of the wars that have been going on and things of that nature. But it wasn't really like that in 2000. It wasn't anything like following Vietnam, but people were just indifferent about the military. So there weren't many resources. Nobody was really looking to hire veterans. I started with a roofing company and quickly worked my way up from labor to an installer and then to a foreman—all with the same company, different brothers; they had different crews. I worked my way up. I started college, and I was working towards getting my criminal justice degree. I got one semester away from completing my four-year degree when I got the call with three days' notice that I was going to deploy to Iraq on September 11, 2004. I was in the last semester there, trying to finish up my four-year degree, and deployed. I was gone 13 months. I was an embedded advisor with the new Iraqi army. We were one of the original groups of service members that were sent over. They hand-picked a bunch of drill sergeants from across the country and put us on advisor support teams—they called us—and embedded us into the Iraqi army that later became the MIT teams. I remember our colonel when we were deploying would constantly make the joke about building the plane in flight, because nobody had done what we did—or doing since Vietnam—and we really didn't have any resources or support from the military, because nobody knew how to support a bunch of nine- and ten-man teams that were embedded into a foreign army just kind of bouncing around the country. Went over there, did that for 13 months, and I was lucky enough to make it home. By the time I got home, I had a two- and three-year-old son. They were one and two when I left. Now what? I had to pay the bills. I got to take care of my family. I started my own construction company because the job that I was doing when I deployed—they really... I was flipping houses. I was doing interior and exteriors. By that time, the individual that I was doing most of the work for hired three people to do what I was doing before I left. Nothing but respect—he had to do what he had to do to survive. But there really wasn't anything for me to do in that position or that company when I came home, so I thought it was best to start my own company. And I did. I started my own roofing company, started doing flips and interior renovations, exterior renovations, and became a contractor. Did that for a few years before I came up with the idea of going back to school, because at some point I'm going to force my kids to go to college. I've had two now that have gone to college. One of them is actually a state trooper, which was the job that I wanted pretty badly when I was younger. And then I have another son going through the background investigation process right now, and he'll likely be a police officer soon. My youngest is too young for that yet, but they're getting the job that I wanted when I was their age, and I know they're going to do great at it. When I went through the hiring process, it was for Buffalo Police. I finished up my four-year degree. I had one B all through college; all the rest were A's—because people with our experience do pretty well in college. We've lived a difficult life. We know what it's like to work all day in the motor pool, and some of us have seen combat. Nobody's shooting at you at college. It's very easy to do that job. You just have to dedicate the time to do it. Finished up my four-year, tried to get a position on Buffalo Police Department. Scored number one on the exam. Went through all the background process for hiring, and they called me on Christmas morning and told me it was no longer a conditional position—it was my job—which I was very excited about. I started winding down the construction company, and then the mayor took a bunch of white males off the list, and a huge lawsuit broke out. He lost, of course. The Buffalo Fire Department sued him for discriminating against white males, and a bunch of individual officers who would have become BPD officers sued as well. I think a lot of them just settled. I was stuck with a decision or choice: either go after the mayor to get a job working for a guy who doesn't want me to work for him, or figure out something else. I had already started to wind down my company, so it actually put me in a little bit of a financial issue, because I had intentionally slowed things down because I thought I was leaving for the Academy. I came up with the idea that I'm never going to go through this again. I'm going to get a position that nobody's going to discriminate against me for any reason. I decided it was either going to be law school or medical school. Law school was my first choice, because then I could go and fight for people who found themselves in a situation like I did. I applied to one law school. I took the LSAT. That law school picked me up just before graduating. I applied to one law firm. Now I'm an equity partner at that law firm here 10 years later. It really worked out. This was really the career path and trajectory that I was meant to be on, and it really couldn't have worked out any better for me.

Kathleen Smith 11:23

Pivoting a bit, are there any tips that you would share for our service members in the audience?

Anthony Kuhn 11:29

Biggest one—I think it's universally accepted—is do the work. You've got to be willing to do the work. I interview people quite often. In fact, I interview every applicant that applies to our firm. Now I have yet to hear, "I'm going to outwork everybody around me," which is the first thing I would say in an interview—and I mean it. I'm going to outwork everyone around me. I'm now at 29 years of military service. I might hit 30. I'm in the retirement process right now—we'll see. But I've worked at this law firm, I've done construction, I've done all these different things. I've wrestled. I've been a wrestling coach for 15 years now. Everything I do, I do it to the best of my ability, and I work as hard as I can to achieve success in whatever it is that I take on. That's really universally accepted in any career field. Wherever you're going to go, if you're the hardest-working person in the room, you're probably going to do really well. You might not be the best employee or the best owner or manager, but you're going to be up there among them. It really does come back to that work ethic that you develop in the military. If you can bring that same work ethic into your civilian career, you'll do really well—whether you start your own business (which you should never be afraid to do, especially with the resources that are out there for service members now) or you go to work at another established business. As long as you bring that work ethic with you, you'll do really well no matter where you go.

Kathleen Smith 12:47

Reflecting on your legal career—and you had various impetuses for it—was there anything in particular in your military career that prepared you for your legal career?

Anthony Kuhn 13:02

There were a few things that helped me push my comfort zone. Those experiences—obviously the All-Army wrestling was something that was constantly uncomfortable, and you're just pushing yourself to try to be better and to do the best that you can. But then there were times—thinking back to my deployment—I worked with plainclothes reconnaissance and surveillance teams within the Iraqi army, the plainclothes spies. I was one of the first advisors to work with these teams and was lucky enough to work with some special forces units who were really good at what they do. I took all that in. At one point, I actually wrote a reconnaissance and surveillance SOP for all of our plainclothes reconnaissance and surveillance teams. Other individuals that weren't doing the same level of work with their teams had their teams rolled under me to manage all of those teams. Just little things like that that have again taught me to do the work, and you'll do well as long as you do the work. But then also push your comfort zone. Coming into the civilian world, coming into a law firm—all I knew was bullets and armor and wrestling and all of these things. All of a sudden, I find myself in academia. Eventually, I launched a veterans law practicum at the law school that I graduated from and was a law school professor for a few years. I never in a million years would have thought that I would leave a tank and become a law school professor in a few years. Just pushing that comfort zone—that's been a challenge, but it's also been very rewarding and eye-opening for me. If you don't change and you don't push that comfort zone, then you're not going to accomplish anything extraordinary. Do the work and push your comfort zone. Take on those challenges. Do the things that you think you might not be able to do—because you'll be surprised at the reward that you get from them.

Kathleen Smith 14:49

You've had a lot of different struggles throughout your career. What were some of the other inner tools, inner skills, that you drew upon to overcome some of these struggles?

Anthony Kuhn 15:01

Time never stops. I remember thinking all the way back to basic training—everybody stressed out. I didn't have a great upbringing. Basic training wasn't that difficult for me. I was really physically fit from wrestling in high school, and I went in the Army to get away at 17, so it really was a good thing for me, and it worked out well for me. But I remember there were times where it was a struggle. It was a struggle for me; it was a struggle for everybody. But I looked at my watch—time doesn't ever stop. I remember going through basic training and thinking, I can do this. I just have to hang on for one more second and then one more second more. I remember going through drill sergeant school—that was pretty demanding, a lot of different trainings, the combatives trainings and the different trainings that I've done. Law school was tricky because I'm providing for a family of five on my own. I'm the breadwinner, so I'm working multiple jobs, and I'm going through law school all at the same time. There were plenty of nights where I was burning the midnight oil and telling myself one more second, one more minute—I can do this—and just keep plugging along. Working through the adversity and not stopping was something that's always been really important for me. But then also, I talked about pushing your limits and your comfort zone. There are countless examples of that in the military—I already gave a couple. But here in the civilian world, the first time I drafted a business development plan for a law firm, I had no idea what I was doing. But I knew that I had done business development with my construction company, and it was all self-taught. I learned all these strategies—assume the sale and all the different ways of working with a potential client. Now I'm transitioning this over into the legal field. Oh, and now I'm teaching other people how to do it. That was quite a transition, but pushing the comfort zone. It was one of those things that I said, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do the best that I can, and I'm going to do a whole bunch of research, and I'm going to outperform anybody else that would have done this. Shortly thereafter, the firm named me as the chair of the business origination committee for the firm, and I've held that position ever since. It's pushing the comfort zone and not being afraid.

Kathleen Smith 17:14

29 years—take a breath. Retirement is sort of around the corner. What's really going through your head with the retirement and where you want to see the next stage of your life?

Anthony Kuhn 17:29

The biggest thing I'm looking forward to is just getting the time back. I worked my way from junior enlisted at 17 years old all the way to First Sergeant by the age of 30. I advanced pretty quickly and fast-tracked while I was in the military. That just means I've been in leadership positions for the past 17 years. I was in leadership positions before, but not the leadership positions that take up as much time as being a First Sergeant or being in a sergeant major role. I haven't gone to Sergeant Major Academy just because, being an attorney as a reservist, it doesn't make financial sense for me to leave my career for nine months to go make $100,000 less for that year. I haven't done it. I haven't really needed to. But I've been the first sergeant of multiple companies. I have served as an E-8 in brigade sergeant major positions and brigade headquarters in those drill sergeant units. I've held a bunch of different positions. I just haven't held the rank Sergeant Major yet. Obviously, all of those positions have taken up quite a bit of time. It is not one weekend a month, two weeks a year. It's one weekend a month, way more than two weeks a year. Then Thursday night training meetings, Tuesday night training meetings, Wednesday night developing training schedules. The next day, you're laying on training at different locations and planning to go to Fort Drum or one of the four or five other states we would go to for training exercises throughout the summer. I've got three sons, and I'm leaving them at home. I'm missing wrestling tournaments that I'm trying to get to. I run the program; I'm the head coach. I'm missing tournaments that my sons are wrestling because of the Army. I get it—it's a sacrifice that we all signed up for. I knew what I signed up for. But for the past 15 years, I've missed baseball tournaments when I'm the coach. I've missed wrestling tournaments. I've missed practices. I've missed significant events that have gone on in the lives of my sons. I'm looking forward to getting all that time back.

Kathleen Smith 19:29

Well, Tony, I really appreciate the time that you've spent with us today. You're always a delight. You're always an inspiration. And I'm so glad we got to share your story. Thanks for joining me.

Anthony Kuhn 19:40

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Kathleen Smith 19:42

Always great talking with my friend Tony Kuhn. If you haven't heard him before, he's actually on my former podcast, Security Cleared Jobs: Who’s Hiring & How. He's got lots of really great advice on security clearances and your issues that you may be having with that, especially if you're in the middle of military. But I just loved his drive today on telling people he'll be the hardest-working person in the room. I think that that is one benefit that a lot of military personnel don't realize they have—they get the job done, and being able to show up in an interview and say, "I'll get the job done. I'll be the hardest-working person there." So I'm glad he reminded us all of that. That's it for today—flying solo. Looking forward to having my co-pilot back, Rachel. I want to make sure that you share this episode and subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter and realize you're not alone. You always have an Exit Buddy. Take care.