Driven By

Did you know that there are currently over 81,900 missing American Service Members around the world? Why does this matter? Why is this important? What does it take to identify and bring home Service Members? Why is closure essential, and how do these experiences affect us today? We cover all of this and much more. These service members served our country, sacrificed their lives, and they haven’t yet come home. Today’s episode is about a group of men and women from all over the world that dedicate their work to finding these service members and bringing them back home to their families and much more. My guest today is Justin LeHew, who is Chief Operations Officer of History Flight. If you missed last week’s episode, go back to last week’s episode, and hear my first conversation with Justin LeHew, Retired Sergeant Major with the United States Marine Corps. I hope this episode impacts you as much as it did to me. If you want to learn more about History Flight and to support them go to historyflight.com.

My guest this week is United States Marine Sergeant Major (Retired) Justin LeHew. This episode is the first of two conversations with Sergeant Major (Ret) LeHew. The second one will be next week and also including the organization that he leads today. Sergeant Major (Ret) LeHew has been awarded the Navy Cross, The Bronze Star. He is also known as the Hero of Nasiriyah for his work taking part in the 507 Maintenance company's rescue operation, including Jessica Lynch in 2003. I quote: “Under constant enemy fire, he led the rescue team to the soldiers. With total disregard for his own welfare, he assisted the evacuation effort of four soldiers, two of whom were critically wounded,” LeHew’s Navy Cross citation reads. In 2010, Sergeant Major (Ret) LeHew was honored by the Marine Corps with an obstacle named in his honor at Parris Island, South Carolina, called LeHew’s Challenge. Every recruit, both male and female, hears from their drill instructors about the heroism displayed by then Gunnery Sergeant LeHew. It was a privilege to have this conversation with Sergeant Major (Ret) LeHew. We discuss topics such as: why he from a young age knew he wanted to serve in the Military, why the Marine Corps prepares you for any situation, what drives him, how our world and war is evolving today, why nothing new is under the sun, lessons learned about building a family with a demanding calling, why we’re all equal as human beings, and more. I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. And, thank you to every person serving our country, protecting us, keeping us safe, and sacrificing your own life for our good. 

Educational inequality is a significant problem today. Last week’s episode covered what it takes to make a positive impact on this problem. When you think about childhood education, you also understand the importance of the child’s development as a person. Teachers are crucial in how this happens, and this work is more than just teaching curriculum. This week I am releasing the 2nd part to the series with Larissa Gregory. Larissa is over social-emotional learning for Memphis Teacher Residency and is trained in Educational Psychology and much more. I enjoyed this conversation learning more about educational inequality, getting to the root of what a child needs to grow, why teacher burnout is so high, addressing this to create better long-term engagement and more. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode also consider how things we discuss here affect our society today.

As of 2019, the gap is increasing between rich and poor children with the quality of education that they receive in America. This week’s episode features what it takes to make a positive impact on this problem. A couple of the top leading factors of crime are education levels and family structure. It’s been discussed on this podcast on previous episodes. Go back to episode three with City of Memphis police director Michael Rallings. This episode is with David Montague, who led the effort in 2009 starting the Memphis Teacher Residency Program out of Memphis, TN, where he is still executive director today. In this episode, we’re going to talk about the initial need for this work, how it came together, challenges faced along the way, what types of teachers succeed in this work, successes experienced, the job still to be done, and more. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode.

This week's episode is going to have a different twist to it than the previous weeks. A few days ago, an article came out where JP Morgan(one of the world's largest banks) told a portion of their staff that they must come back to the office. This report said that through internal data collection, they saw decreased productivity on Mondays and Fridays and worries that remote work is not a substitute for organic interaction and creates missed learning opportunities for younger people. This article got me thinking about previous episodes that we have had on this podcast where Covid-19, relationships, work from home, development, engagement, and community have come up during each conversation. I thought it would be helpful to publish one episode with combined clips where this topic is addressed, and overall themes are exposed. It's fascinating to think about all the technological advances that we have today and what's ahead for our world, but how some things don't change. These are our need for community, relationships, encouragement, accountability, motivation, connection, and more. I hope you enjoy this week's episode.