The Lt. Dan Band, continuing its mission to uplift the nation’s defenders, veterans, and families, will roll out its summer tour later this month; and its co-founder, actor and humanitarian Gary Sinise, told Newsmax Saturday that the shows are just one way that his foundation works to help those who have served the United States.
“That’s just one of our programs,” Sinise told Newsmax’s “Saturday Report.” “Serving Heroes is another one, and we have multiple programs that all just raise spirits and lift people up and let them know they’re appreciated.”
Sinise was in New York City recently as part of the Serving Heroes program, where he was among volunteers serving food to firefighters in Midtown Manhattan.
“Our first responders, they’re working hard,” Sinise said. “We can’t forget what they’ve been through. I got involved with the FDNY after Sept. 11 and started supporting them back then, and have ever since.”
Sinise said when he created the Gary Sinise Foundation, it added the Serving Heroes program, and since then, “We’ve served well over a million meals all across the country and overseas at military bases and firehouses, police stations, whatever, just to make sure that our defenders know that we care about them. We appreciate them, what they’re doing.”
Sinise, whose Lt. Dan Band is named for the character he played in “Forrest Gump,” said the motivation for his foundation came from the service members in his family, including many Vietnam veterans who did not get the service or welcome home that they deserved.
“Somebody like me who was on television, you know, in a TV series or in movies or something, showing up at a firehouse or a military base or something and serving some food and playing some music that can change the whole mood, that can lift people up.”
The Lt. Dan Band concerts will kick off at Fort Riley, Kansas, on June 13, and Sinise said the band will play its 600th show in the next few months.
“We’ll be at Fort Riley next weekend,” he said. “We’re in Dayton [Ohio] at Wright-Patterson doing a big air show there the following weekend. We’re in Indiana at one of our military bases the night after.
“We’re going to be at Breezy Point [Minnesota] for a big sort of veterans support concert July 11th. We have a big veterans’ concert in Illinois on July 12th. Then we’re going up to Fort McCoy [Wisconsin] on July 13th.”
Sinise said the shows and other work the foundation does are accomplished by people donating money, which allows him to “employ my band members, put up the stage, put up the lights, put up the sound, and for me to show up and give some joy to our defenders. So thank you to the American people for donating to the Gary Sinise Foundation.”
Support for the military is important, as they’re serving every day to keep the United States safe, he added.
“They’re constantly training,” he said. “They get deployed and … they go away from their families, as you well know.
“During the height of Afghanistan and Iraq, we had people who had deployed nine, 10 times over a 15- or 20-year … we have people in harm’s way right now, and we continue to have people getting hurt. I don’t want them to think that we don’t care about that and we don’t appreciate that.”
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