Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel

Cleared Hot

Society & Culture

4.9 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2025

⏱️ 120 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Douglas is an actor, and the creator of the play The American Soldier.

The American Soldier portrays fourteen characters, based on real stories and actual letters written by veterans and their family members from the American Revolution, all the way through current day Afghanistan. The story is told with a through-line and a strong message, but not chronologically. It examines the internal struggles and problems that soldiers face when returning home from combat and the sacrifice made by our veterans and their families.

We see one character who represents all the powerful and beautiful things of the military – discipline, teamwork, and brotherhood. He is the only character who comes out more than once to share these lessons with us. All other aspects are only seen once, and they represent our glimpse of what sacrifice is for our veterans and their families.

The play starts with our narrator sharing his lesson in discipline. We see a Revolutionary soldier freezing at Valley Forge, a grieving mother remembering her son and his story of how he died in Vietnam, our narrator sharing his lesson in teamwork, our Bronx WWII veteran suffering with the effects of PTSD from his experience in Iwo Jima, our African American Vietnam Vet, our Iraq veteran addicted to the adrenalin of war, a wife and son dealing with the father’s absence while he is away at war on 3rd deployment in Afghanistan, a father in the wake of his soldier son’s suicide from Iraq, a chicano soldier dealing with the loss of his limb and his wife helps him to stand up again, a WWI soldier sharing his love for his brother in the trenches, an eloquent Civil War Soldier writing his final letter to his wife (the Dear Sarah letter), and finally our narrator sharing his lesson in brotherhood.

Learn more about The American Soldier here - https://www.theamericansoldiersoloshow.com/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Before I forget, first podcast shirt of the year just came out. It's pretty simple. It says surrender with a line through it, meaning don't surrender. Link to it in the show notes. Shop to Cleartoppodcast.com. Get one if you want, don't if you don't. My guest today is Douglas Terrell. He is an actor, a thespian, if you will. And honestly, this is my favorite part about the podcast.
0:23.0	This is what I enjoy the most.
0:25.8	Being exposed to people that I probably never would have had the chance to be exposed to,
0:30.4	sitting down, having a conversation with them about what makes them tick.
0:34.5	Specifically, and I'm going to read this right from his website.
0:39.8	He has a play called the American Soldier. His words from his website, which is the American Soldier Solosho.com.
0:49.8	To raise awareness of the struggles of veterans and military families face when they either come home from war, transition out of the military, and of course the invisible wounds of post-traumatic stress.
0:59.7	More importantly, I want to help those who have no connection to the military better understand what service to our nation sincerely means.
1:06.5	He describes what the play is, so I'm not going to get into that.
1:09.4	But it's fantastic. I love the concept. It spans multiple generations, multiple wars. It's really cool. And he has a skill that I just will never have. The ability to get up and perform in front of people, the desire to be an actor, who good, good on you. No way in hell.
1:27.9	Am I ever participating in that?
1:29.8	I don't know if there's anything
1:30.6	that can make me feel more uncomfortable.
1:33.0	And I don't really know why, but whatever.
1:35.2	Irrelevant when it comes to the show.
1:37.5	Today's episode is going to be 376 with Douglas Terrell.
1:41.6	Before we get into that, give me a brief one minute.
1:45.9	Let's pay the bills here real quick.
1:49.2	Today's episode is brought to you by Montana Knife Company.
1:52.8	Let's dive right into the website and see what they currently have to offer.
1:56.9	Now, I've said this many times.
1:58.3	If you're a friend, a friend, if you're a fan of the podcast,
	...

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