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APPLETON, Wis. — Years ago, when Ryan Lonergan was in the military, one of his team leaders tagged him with the nickname “Talkabout.’’
Because, you know, Ryan Lonergan was always talking – about something.
As it turns out, that team leader was on to something. Today, Lonergan talks about a lot of things in his Fragout Podcast, which began with his mother at his kitchen table, and now has reached people in all 50 states and 40 countries around the world.
Now, that’s something to talk about.
It’s a broadcast focused on military veterans, aimed to inform, educate and help those who’ve served and are transitioning back into mainstream society.
Lonergan covers a wealth of topics with guests ranging from a former soldier who took part in D-Day, a former Navy seal, County Veterans Service Officers, politicians, to a mortgage firm that helps veterans navigate the difficult Veterans Administration Home Loan process.
He's a veteran himself who served six years in the Wisconsin Army National Guard and did one tour of duty in Iraq. There, he worked in an Iraqi prison, strip-searching new detainees, including Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and jihadists. So he, in part, understands the challenges and wanted to help those who were trying to re-enter mainstream society.
And while he knows there’s a 30,000-foot view – yes, many veterans have problems in this area – he focuses on the micro part of his mission, which is to help locally, and help one veteran at a time.
“I thought, I’m going to put myself out there,’’ Lonergan said. “I’m going to talk about my suicide attempts. I'm going to talk about my depression. I’m going to talk about my issues I had with transitioning."
“I don’t care what people did or didn’t do in the military. All I care about is how are they using their military experience to impact and improve the quality of life for their friends, family, community and themselves. That’s all I care about.”
It takes about 30 seconds to see Lonergan's passion to help veterans is all-encompassing. The podcast is just a portion of his business, Wisconsin Veteran LLC. He has worked in the veteran community for 14 1/2 years in a wide array of capacities, and he uses his knowledge and connections to consult with local businesses that want to get involved in the veteran community.
“They don’t know where to go. They don’t know where to find information,’’ said Lonergan, “so companies have hired me to come in and say, ‘Hey, if you guys want to get involved, this is the best route. These are the people you need to work with, or this is how I would do this because this is going to best relate to the audience you’re trying to attract.’
“I think companies generally want to get involved. They really do. I just don’t think they know how, and they don’t want to get scammed, either.’’
One such company was Mortgage Nerds of Appleton, which is a sponsor of the podcast, and also provides the space where the Fragout podcast originates from. They also fit the profile of Lonergan's consulting arm.
“(Ryan) was the avenue we were looking for to help us,’’ said Mortgage Nerds co-owner Mike Cox. “Because I’m not a veteran. I happen to want to help veterans, but I’m not in that community. He was that door that was able to lead us into that community, introduce us to the right people so we could actually, truly start helping and giving back to that community.”
At the start, Cox’s company wanted to help with the many misconceptions regarding the VA home loan program. So Lonergan put him in touch with several County Veteran Service Officers.
“We feel we have a very important message to give and to deliver and to educate people, and never would have known the CVSOs from each county to contact and give presentations,’’ said Cox. “It’s not about the presentation. There are 100 people in the room that are responsible for thousands of veterans. We never would have had that opportunity before if I hadn’t known Ryan because I didn’t know that existed.’’
And now, it has extended beyond that.
“When he’s doing a podcast for somebody that comes in and, a lot of times, I’m free and able to get their story and a lot of those guys are veterans’ advocates and they’re doing something that we can come along and support them through our marketing efforts, sometimes it’s donating money and sometimes it’s getting your hands dirty and helping them with an event, a clothes drive, or whatever it may be.
“All those opportunities presented themselves through Ryan, just never would have had that before. If I go knock on a door and say, 'Hey, I want to help veterans.' I didn’t even know what door to knock on, to be honest with you.”
Sam Rogers, the Wisconsin director for Concerned Veterans for America, found out about Ryan’s podcast through a friend who was listening to it in Turkey.
“He was like, ‘This dude is in your backyard, man, you’ve got to listen to this,’’ said Rogers, who was an intelligence officer and interrogator in three tours in Afghanistan. ‘He’s got guys from all these different branches, countries. It’s not Hollywood douchey, bro. It’s very Wisconsin nice.’”
So when Rogers took his organization’s cause to withdraw troops from Afghanistan to the masses, he selected two outlets; Wisconsin Public Radio and the Fragout Podcast.
Since then, he has seen how Lonergan's podcast has affected the veteran community.
“The reach is significant,’’ said Rogers. “It’s crucial from everything to sharing stories to getting our communities engaged in veterans’ issues in a meaningful way.
“The amount of topics he’s able to share, and the amount of perspective he’s been able to connect our Wisconsin community to, is just fantastic. It’s so important. And there’s not really a lot of places for that.”
On the one hand, Lonergan is excited for the future of his podcast, and on the other, he knows he’s already succeeded.
“This could fail tomorrow and guess what? I’m still going to wake up with a smile on my face,’’ said Lonergan, “because I can say for the rest of my life that I impacted people’s lives throughout the world.’’
Once again, that’s something to talk about.
To listen to other Fragout podcasts, click here.
Story idea? You can reach Mike Woods at 920-246-6321 or at: michael.t.woods1@charter.com.