From Battlefield to Business: Dan Douglas on Courage, Faith, and Reinvention

Dan Douglas, a proud Iowan and former Green Beret, embodies resilience and adaptability in every facet of his life. Initially pursuing a career in architecture at Iowa State University, Dan soon realized that the structured world of design was not his calling. After leaving college, he transitioned into construction before ultimately finding his path in the U.S. Army, where he served for 20 years. His military career took him from combat engineering to the elite ranks of the Green Berets, where he specialized as a Special Forces Medical Sergeant. Throughout multiple deployments, including tours in Iraq, Dan developed a keen understanding of leadership, courage, and the importance of faith in navigating adversity. After retiring from the military, he pursued a new mission: helping others as a physician assistant and launching his own real estate business, Green Beret Realty.

In this compelling episode of Courageous Crossroads, host Jeff Johnson sits down with Dan to explore the winding path that led him from Iowa State to the battlefield, from skepticism to a deep-rooted Christian faith, and from military service to entrepreneurship. Dan shares candid reflections on the challenges of admitting personal struggles, the importance of vulnerability, and how true courage isn’t just about facing physical danger but embracing emotional and spiritual growth. With insights from his military experience, his faith journey, and his current work in real estate, Dan offers listeners a powerful perspective on stepping into the unknown with conviction and authenticity. Whether discussing the weight of leadership, the necessity of transparency, or the complexities of faith in the midst of conflict, this episode is a masterclass in what it means to live courageously.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Intro Music
Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out in courage and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson. 

Jeff Johnson:
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us for another edition of the Courageous Crossroads podcast. Okay, so here’s what happened. I didn’t feel well. I’m not going to go into a long diatribe about what it was, but, you know, I’m not quick to run to the doctor when necessary. You know, I go and do that sort of thing, but it’s not my default setting, and I felt horrible. So I ended up going to an urgent care facility to get checked out for some stuff, and I went to the urgent care facility not that long ago and got checked out. The nurses were fantastic. The PA that came and helped me out was fantastic. And I got into a conversation with him. After we got done worrying about my physical being, I had a conversation with him about his past and how he ended up going the medical route and way led on to way. And I found out that Dan Douglas, who’s our next guest, is not only a Iowan. Native Iowan, but he’s also a Army veteran. He’s in fact, a Green beret. He spent 20 years in the army serving our country, which was a wonderful thing. And now, not only is he a PA looking after me, but he’s also pursuing work in the realty field. He’s doing something else in his retirement. So Dan Douglas is a man of many, many things. And I found it fascinating just talking to him in the doctor’s office. Also very happy with the information that he gave me there, knowing that I was going to be okay.  And I think that worked like a placebo. And I started feeling great right after I met him. But anyway, Dan Douglas, I said, would you please be on my podcast? And he said, jeff, I’d love to. So, without further ado, here is Dan Douglas. You’re gonna love this guy. 

Dan Douglas:

I went to Iowa State University. I was gonna be a cyclone. I was born and raised one. Grew up cheering for him. Grandpa had season tickets, so I went there. I thought I was going to be an architect, actually. So I went into their pre architecture program, did miserably for two full semesters. Thought I’m going to give it another go. So I went back for part of a third semester before realizing I did not have what it Took to be a good college student at the time. Yeah. So then I withdrew from classes, went back. I had been working, you know, in the summers and part time doing residential construction and framing houses and stuff. So I went and I got a job doing that for another few months before the army took me in and I joined the army end of March 2004. 

Jeff Johnson:
So that’s right. I remember you telling me you did a little bit of construction work, but that was short lived. 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, I had done it for several years, but it was off and on in the summers. So I’d go work summers and I’d frame houses with a company and then I’d go to school and then in the summer while playing baseball, I’d know frame houses and stuff when I had the time. And I did that off and on for a couple of years anyway. And I had worked in retail too, part time during the school year. So I pick up weekend hours and sometimes an evening here or there. But I did that for a few years before I joined the army, so. 

Jeff Johnson:
Interesting. Interesting. Well, for our listeners, we’re joined today with Dr. Dan Douglas. And Dan, I’m so grateful to have you with us. Thank you so much for coming on. 

Dan Douglas:
Care. Careful with the terminology though. Not a doctor. I’m a physician associate or physician assistant. Yeah, very careful. Some of the MDs and DOs get very protective and they should because they spend a lot more time in school to get their medical degrees and certifications. 

Jeff Johnson:
So this is, I’m stand corrected. Thank you, Dan, for correcting me. Whenever I have somebody that’s standing in front of me giving medical advice, that’s it. You’re called doctor. And that includes my wife too. No, she’s. 

Dan Douglas:
No, it’s, it happens often. I, it happens often. I walk into a room to talk to, you know, exam and talk to a patient. I’m often, hey, doctor. Doctor. And it’s like, okay, I know what you’re trying to say, but I’m not a doctor. I’m not. 

Jeff Johnson:
So well, thank you for correcting me. So, and this brings up an interesting point. This is how we met. I didn’t feel good and so I ended up going to the doctor. I went to a urgent care facility and here you come to come in and see how I’m doing and to take care of me. And you did a wonderful job and. 

Dan Douglas:
I feel you’re still here, so I must have done okay. Anyway, I feel a whole lot better. I didn’t screw it up. You’re still here. 

Jeff Johnson:
So you didn’t screw it up. And in the middle of that conversation, I don’t even know how we got on the subject, but I, I found out that you had a military background and it must have been how you got into medicine and then that you also have an interest in real estate. So you’ve told us about growing up in Iowa. You’ve told us about Earlham and where you’re from and the venture at Iowa State. What was interesting about architecture at Iowa State? And why didn’t you complete that? Let me start with that question. 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah. So one, I think this is no slight to Earlham, right? It’s not. I think there is a tendency in the smaller schools, and I was victim of this, but also a victim of my own, you know, making. I was involved in everything. So every single teacher had an extracurricular program that I was part of with them or I was in a, you know, a team. So I played all of the sports I possibly could. And so there was always a, you know, unspoken kind of, you’re going to get enough forewarning. Maybe if you’re not ready the day of, if you get it turned in first thing Monday morning or very next thing the next morning, you’re going to be okay. So I could procrastinate and get away with a lot. And everything at school came pretty easy. I wasn’t dumb, but I was able to kind of navigate that without putting in a lot of the work that some of my peers had to in terms of doing the reading assignments and making sure the homework was done on time. That was not a good recipe for going to college and being told, hey, now you’re responsible for yourself and you have zero ties to any of your instructors. None of them care about whether or not you decided to stay up and play video games the night before instead of doing your homework. And so just the discipline was a big issue for me. And then it was very design oriented. I don’t besmirch that at all.  But some architecture programs are a little bit more towards the engineering side, a little bit more towards the structure side initially, and they kind of work towards the design. Iowa State was very heavy in the design early, and that was different for me. I wasn’t very artistic. I wasn’t very creative in my own mindset, in my mind frame. So I struggled with some of those classes anyway. And so then on top of that, with discipline problems and everything else, it was just a rest disaster. I was not ready for college. And had no idea what I really wanted to be. Architecture was just something cool. My cousin went into landscape architecture, and so I was kind of like, yeah, I want to go do that. Go to design school and I’ll learn how to do. I didn’t know what I was doing, so it was a lot of that. Really. 

Jeff Johnson:
Well, this podcast is. Thank you for being so transparent about that. That’s. I’m. I’m sure a lot of people go down that route, and I’m sure a lot of people would just grind it out in a career path maybe that they weren’t that interested in or didn’t love that much because they already started. And this is a podcast about the topic of courage. And we’re going to get to the question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done here? In a minute. But feeding on that decision that you took to change course a little bit, do you feel like that took a little bit of courage, especially for a younger man going into or withdrawing from school? 

Dan Douglas: Yeah. Or. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of stuff going on at the time. I wouldn’t have defined it as courage at the time. It was probably just giving up, throwing in the towel. If anything, I think it would have taken more courage for me to stick it out, knowing that I was struggling and try to actually see it through. So in hindsight, I wouldn’t have viewed it that way. It was embarrassing, right? Like, I was a pretty intelligent person. I think most people expected me to do well at college, and I just was struggling and not doing well. So withdrawing and not really wanting to talk about that, I didn’t want to share that with people. And I think that partly led to my willingness to be like, I’m just going to join the army as well. It’s kind of running away from my apparent problems at home and my inability to get through college like a good student. So I, I don’t know. I don’t think that was courageous. I think it was probably the opposite at the time, honestly. 

Jeff Johnson:
The opposite. Okay, well, how. Okay, so tell us. Share with our audience how you would define courage then. How would you define that? 

Dan Douglas:
So courage is really stepping up in the face of something that you really do recognize as fear, inducing something that you recognize as a risk and doing the thing anyway. Right. Doing the right thing in the presence of that fear or that trepidation or that risk, knowing I, I, this needs to be done. And even if I’m going to potentially harm myself or put myself and make myself vulnerable, doing This I need to do it anyway, and that’s doing it. Is that courageous act. 

Jeff Johnson:
So that’s a good definition. Now, who do you look up to as people that are courageous? Do you have examples of that in your life that you could easily point to and say that person is courageous? 

Dan Douglas:
Easily point to. I got to go to faith. The only one that I could easily point to would be Christ, right? Jesus on the cross. Courageously doing that for the rest of us, for sure. Most, most of our own, human or other man, women, doesn’t matter. Most of us are flawed in a lot of nature. And I think most of us try to do things in a sense that might be courageous. But sometimes I think we fall into the selfish or the conceited or we like to share it, make it about ourselves or find some way to profit or benefit from the sacrifices that we’re making. And I don’t think that’s necessarily bad, but it does make it a flawed interpretation, makes it harder to pick human people that are not also God. And then in pale comparison, right?  So even if they’ve done some really courageous things, they pale in comparison to that ultimate sacrifice. But there are some. I mean, I worked with men, mostly men, right, in the army, in the military, that knowing full well like this, I could potentially die on this next mission. And they’re still going to execute it because they know that the unit, the mission requires this thing to take place and they’re going to be put at risk for it. But they knew that their vulnerability helped the rest of us succeed. And that takes a lot of courage. Right? I mean, when, you know, you’ve got rounds flying and bombs going off, grenades exploding, and you’re still going to go close with to destroy the enemy to help your element or your unit continue on with that mission. And that takes a lot of courage.  So there were men and women mostly no named. Right. It’s a unit going and they’re just acting and they’re doing this selflessly on behalf of their unit. 

Jeff Johnson:
So I hear that. I’m. I’m glad to hear you say that. I hear that from a lot of people. I think I’m about 70 interviews in now, plus or minus with this podcast. And I’ve been so blessed to hear people give me a definition of courage. And, you know, it, for the most part, it rests on that selfless thing that’s always a quality of courage, is that it’s something that’s done in service to a thing or an idea or to others or something like that. So yeah, that’s really good. Okay. If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear more about your military service then. So you go into the army, what was that like? 

Dan Douglas:
Well, understanding and thank you. 

Jeff Johnson:
And thank you for your service, by the way. 

Dan Douglas:
No, I appreciate it. Initially a mistake, right? Recruiters, they’re not liars, but they’re going to be about as honest as they need to be to get you to sign the paperwork. And I joined ignorant. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what I was signing. I had been led to believe that being a combat engineer, which is what I enlisted as initially, was the exact same as being an infantry guy, only you got to carry explosives and blow stuff up as well. And that was not accurate. It’s not accurate at all to the job description of what a combat engineer does. But I didn’t know any better. So out of my naivete I went ahead and I joined as a combat and very quickly learned that wasn’t what I was going to be doing. but I had kind of invested and I’m very much on the obligation side. I’m responsible to this now. I’ve signed a contract. I’m going to do the best job I can be. I’m going to be the best that I can be inside of this job. So I committed myself and was fairly successful at it and had done my initial enlistment, was getting ready to get out after one tour to Iraq and was just getting ready. Okay, my enlistment’s up. I’m going to get out. I had some run ins trying to get some of those schools or special schools that didn’t work out for me. They’d been taken away or I’d earned a slot that then got given to somebody else. And I was just really, I want to say angry really with the military in the way that I felt like I’d been treated. And I had a great mentor. 

Jeff Johnson:
Because you, Sergeant Major Richard, you felt like you’ve been misled. 

Dan Douglas: Yeah, well, a little bit. Not on the initial enlistment. I think at that point it had been a joke. Everybody kind of uses that as almost like a rallying cry, right? We all get to commiserate together. We were all lied to by our recruiters. So there’s a little bit there where you just kind of get over that and kind of develop some camaraderie with your fellow recruits. But later on I had, you know, earned a school slot. We did like training up sport and Combat engineers go to sapper school. It’s this elite engineer school where you use small unit tactics and kind of focus on engineering things like explosives and charges and stuff. And you are supposed to be good at this. The opportunity to go to that school was taken from me several times. I’d earned a slot.  There were, you know, three available. There were four available. And I’d be one of the top three or four that earned a slot. And then an incoming NCO or sergeant would come into the unit who didn’t have a sapper tab. And so they would reward them by saying, hey, we can’t have a platoon sergeant who doesn’t have a sapper tab, right? So they’d take that slot from me and give it to somebody else. That had happened a couple of times, maybe three times, I think, with sapper slots. And I had earned at least one. I think there might have been a second one. Memory is a little bit fuzzy now for Ranger School, which is just an elite leadership school that most of the army goes to, especially infantry guys. And I had done that a couple times with that, too. And those had been taken away and either given a senior enlisted or new officers coming into the unit. And so I was very. I’m as angry, right, with my unit for having these train ups, for letting me have that opportunity to earn those slots and then just taking them away. Because it was really the unit slot, it wasn’t mine. But Sergeant Major Richard at the time, he then went and commissioned it, became a captain, and he went to PA school as well. But before that, he had kind of counseled me. He’s like, pull me to the side. Said, you might want to look at selection to be a Green Beret. If you go, it’s your Social Security number. It is your name on those orders. They can’t take it from you. If you get selected, that’s your name, it’s your orders. They can’t take that from you, right? So rather than just get out of the army and be angry and bitter and go back to your life in Iowa, he was like, I, you know, recommend you at least try this. So I went in with that mentality. I went to selection under the mentality that I was going to do everything I could to be successful in selection. And if I didn’t, then I would just end my investment and go home to Iowa. And at least I tried. I gave it my all. And fortunately or unfortunately, I got selected. And so there was a degree of problems there, too. I got Stop Loss, which is the Army’s way of saying, you can’t leave your unit until you’re done with this next deployment. So I had a second tour to Iraq. When I got back from that second tour to Iraq, though, I was able to go to the Q course and qualify as a Green Beret. And so I, you know, spent some time there. I take about two years to get through the qualification course as an 18 Delta or a special Forces medical Sergeant. Graduated the course then and then went to my unit. I was with this Special Forces group for several years, and then towards the end of that, I was getting ready to try to get out again. I’d started a family by then, didn’t really want to live the special operations lifestyle with a family, wife and kids, and was looking for opportunities to just get out again. And I had a pa, another mentor of mine who said, hey, maybe you should try PA school. So I did that in the Army. I then applied for PA school, got accepted, graduated as a pa, then commissioned as an officer, and then finished my career as a physician assistant. 

Jeff Johnson:
How many years were you in the army? 

Dan Douglas:
I did 20. 

Jeff Johnson:
Exactly 20 years. Wow, that’s amazing. 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah. Basic Active Service day. It was the 31st of March 2004. And then my retirement date was effective the 31st of March, 2024. So. 

Jeff Johnson:
Okay, so we gotta stop because there’s a whole bunch of goody that I want to go back over here. What I. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to know what your tours were like in Iraq. And you said you did one. Did you do one tour as a. As a. What was your rank? 

Dan Douglas:
So initially I was a Private first Class. I enlisted as a Private first Class. 

Jeff Johnson:
And that’s when you did your tour? 

Dan Douglas:
I entered, yeah, as a Private first class, I think. I don’t think I actually made specialist until after that first 12 months either. I believe there’s like time and service requirements. And I hadn’t met him yet because I went straight through training, almost straight to Iraq. And I think by the time I got back, I still hadn’t even met service requirements with a waiver yet. But I was close. I might have. I might have picked it up before I came back fuzzy on that. I’d have to go back and actually check my service record. And then I went to Selection as a junior E5. So I had just made E5 by the time I went to Selection, got picked up to be a Green Beret, but I wasn’t able to qualify as a Green Beret. My unit had been stop loss. While I was at selection. So when I got back, they couldn’t even put me on orders to go to the qualification course to be a Green Beret. I had to complete my tour a second time with that same unit. Then when I got back from that, I was able to get put on orders to go to the qualification course. 

Jeff Johnson:
And became a Green Beret. 

Dan Douglas:
Yes. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wow. Okay. What was your first tour in Iraq like and what year was that? 

Dan Douglas:
So it would have been end of 2004, I believe. We got there in November, and that was. It was interesting. I also. It was kind of a unique thing. I was a combat engineer, but I didn’t end up doing much of my job as a combat engineer. I had gotten brought into the unit as they were preparing to deploy, and I’d kind of gotten pulled by that same mentor, Sergeant Major Richard, had kind of pulled me to the side. He was in the staff section with the core staff engineer section at the time. And he had said, hey, I need another. I need somebody up here. We need a junior enlisted soldier in this office. And I had shown up with another older gentleman. He was like, 34. I was, you know, 21 coming into the unit. And his question was unrelated to comet engineer. He said, who knows anything about computers? And so I had built one and I had learned how to type going through school and stuff like that. So I was the guy, because the other guy was 34 and hadn’t really done anything with computers. So I was his guy that got selected to go to this core staff engineer section. So my whole first deployment was actually in a staff engineer section. But we had a special unit that would go around and train, and their job was to train other folks how to use minesweepers, actions on. In the event of improvised explosive devices, how they would operate, like tactics and stuff like that, and ways to kind of navigate that complication on the battlefield. And so they needed other guys to sit in the turret and be gunners and drive and do other things to get them to and from different locations. And I got tagged to occasionally go along with them. So I’d sit in the turret of a Humvee and sit behind a.50 cal or behind a.240 bravo. And we’d move from one location to another, and then we’d get out. But I also wasn’t senior enough to do any of the training. So I would just sit in the tent and basically guard the weapons or sit near the vehicles and guard them while they would go to whatever facility and teach these other units how to do the Stuff. And then I would just sit there. So I had plenty of time to read. I did lots of reading on that deployment. And whenever weren’t doing that, I was sitting in my, you know, at a desk in the staff section. I had plenty of time to read there, too, because you’re working between emails, waiting for sergeant Major to give you a task to do, or I’m pulling CQ at the front desk to pull security. And so I just. I have books with me all the time. I read that whole. My first deployment. So many, so many different books. It was. 

Jeff Johnson:
What did you read? What did you read? 

Dan Douglas:
I said so many. I read over a thousand titles in Iraq in that. In. In that year. Yeah. Now, some of those were only, you. 

Jeff Johnson:
Now hold on a second. A thousand titles? Because, okay, 365,000 divided by 365 is two and a half or something like that. That’s a lot. 

Dan Douglas:
I would. I could easily make it through. I could easily make it through 300 pages in a day with the amount of time I had on average. Now, there were some days where I didn’t get any reading done, but there were multiple days where I would sit for hours every day and have nothing to do but read. So I’d work out, read, work out some more, read some more. Again, it was a benefit to being a junior soldier on these tours where it’s like, hey, who’s gonna go? We need somebody to pull security? I’m like, I’m not doing anything else. I’ll pull security. So I’d sit there with my gun on and read and. 

Jeff Johnson:
Okay, so give me an idea of some of the stuff that you read. Fiction, non fiction, history, biography. 

Dan Douglas:
Okay, Yeah, I call them potato chips. I potato chip the fiction in between my non fiction stuff and then the non fiction ranged mostly on that tour. A lot of it was religious, theological related. I had come back to the faith relatively recently, so after I had left architecture school at Iowa State, but before I joined the Army, I had committed my life to Christ. So it was that kind of walk. As I was going through training, I was reading the Bible, I was reading a bunch of theological stuff. I wanted to just absorb as much of it as I possibly could. So a lot of it was theological related, creation versus evolution type stuff because I was very heavy in the science and wanted to know more about that too. So very heavy into that. But I read all. I mean, I was reading political stuff, I was reading history, whatever I could get my hands on. And if anybody recommended a book, I’d Waste my next paycheck buying a bunch of novels or something like that and read those two. 

Jeff Johnson:
Give me a. Give me a book or two that stood out across the genre. I don’t. I don’t care which. You know, I’m a big reader too, so, I mean, I loved. I just do. I did. I would. I wouldn’t want to be in Iraq to do it, Dan, the way that you did it, but I would love to have a year where I just could chew through books like that. 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah, I know. I was. It was a blessing, honestly, for fiction. I would say R.A. Salvatore’s the Dark Elf series. That entire series had me invested. I loved it. Drizzt is my hero. Right. So I’ve had numerous animals or characters that I’ve named for that exact reason. And then on the non fiction side, man, I’m gonna be. That one’s a little bit harder because I think a lot of my politics and my view on the world has changed. So the ones that stood out to me at the time probably weren’t as cool. You know what? I won’t say that there was one that kind of changed the way I looked at the world as an objectivist literature. So along the. The lines of like, Ayn Rand and stuff. Also novel, but reading some of her stuff. Atlas Shrugged was a good one. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Dan Douglas:
But lots of, like, the garbage that was in there. It’s not the novel that stood out to me. It was really the objectivist side of it that kind of stood out. So I went down some rabbit holes and trails, kind of chasing some of that knowledge and learning a little bit more of objectivist philosophy and that type of stuff, which contrasts with my Christian faith, by the way. 

Jeff Johnson:
Well, but. But I. There’s a lot of people that I. That I talk to, and they’re of different opinions about this. Some people say, jeff, don’t waste your time on something that’s got a dogma or something that’s 180 degrees from what it is that you believe, walking right into it. And other people say, no, you know, you need to investigate that stuff. I’ve kind of found. Need to really investigate that stuff. Otherwise I. I have no way to plant my feet and give an opinion. You know what I mean? I need to know if somebody that I think. 

Dan Douglas:
I’m not saying it was bad. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. If there’s somebody that I think on the outset that I disagree with, it’s kind of like I got to hold my nose and read the book so that I, you know, I’M not content prior to investigation. Do you know what I mean? I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be that guy. So. Yeah, good for you. Wow. That’s a lot of. That’s a lot of books. I gotta. I think one of the, I would say strictly non fiction was believe the author is Frank Viola and this was a religious book, but I believe he said it’s called Old Wine and New Wine Skins or something like that. 

Jeff Johnson:
Okay. 

Dan Douglas:
And he was talking about the early church and it was very heavy into the house church movement around that time. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yep. 

Dan Douglas:
So there was a lot of the. We need to step away from the formal church gatherings and kind of move more towards these organic smaller gatherings and stuff like that. And it was a really cool book. It kind of influenced my relationship with formal church, but it hasn’t impacted. I mean, I still go to a formal church. Right. I still go to an organizational church in a building. But it changed the way I, I perceive what church is and how church is supposed to act and interact with the world around us. 

Jeff Johnson:
So, yeah, there the thing called the Great Schism, you know, when the Roman Catholics took off and the Orthodox and all that kind of stuff, when it spl. There we have the birth of all of the denominations. And I had somebody explain to me once that the denominations should be viewed like, oh, gosh, like a stained glass window. And the different denominations are different colors in that stained glass window. And I got the point, but I still didn’t like it. So I’m the kind of. I’m the kind of Christian that likes to get back to before the Great Schism, you know, when Christ was resurrected, the next 230, 250 years, church was in somebody’s house. And if you had 50 people at your church, that was a mega church because that was a rich guy’s house. Otherwise it was, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, you know, that kind of a thing. And so that’s the model of church that makes the most sense to me. I don’t begrudge big house churches, but when I go back to the Bible, to the, you know, people in Acts, these are small groups of people and everybody’s pulling their load, you know, and practicing their spiritual gifts and that sort of thing. So I got to read Violas. I haven’t read that book. I’ll have to read that book. 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah. And, and I’m a big like part of. It’s like real time, real places, real People. Right. Part of it, I think sometimes what we struggle with in the church is at the time they were being persecuted, and so they were kind of forced into their houses where they kind of had to stay away from the public eye to do that. And part of that might have been good. I’m not sure if it all was good. 

Jeff Johnson:
Right. 

Dan Douglas:
And so I think that’s where maybe I kind of side with the local church now. Can be a beacon. Right. People suffering. I do want answers to this. And they have a location they can go. They’re not having to, like, secretly talk to their name, you know, make little fish symbols in the ground to let them know, hey, I want to be able to talk about faith now. They could just go to a building where they can do that. And so part of it is the nature of, like, okay, sure, it’s a. It’s a luxury that we have today that they didn’t have then. That doesn’t mean it’s evil either. So, you know, things in the right place, in the right time and stuff, if we can. If we can put them in the right perspective, I think they can be a benefit to society still. 

Jeff Johnson:
So did you become reintroduced to your faith? You use that kind of language. Do you became reintroduced to your faith then when you were in Iraq? 

Dan Douglas:
No, it was before that. The walk started before I joined the Army. Yeah, it was that. It was around February. I want to. I always say February 20th. That just happened to also coincide with my oldest birthday. So I’m not sure if I’ve just conflated dates in my head, but it was February timeframe. I was at my mom’s and I had an incident where I had received answer to a prayer. And I was kind of praying at that point to the God that might be out there. Like, if you can answer this prayer, then maybe I’ll take this seriously. And I got a very effective answer to that prayer for me at that time. And it just. It started everything at that point. I committed and I was like, okay, this is. This is legit, and I’m going to commit my life to this. And so that was happening for over a month before I joined the Army. But then you can only have one book, right. While you’re in the army, you can only have one book in the barracks and. 

Jeff Johnson:
Oh, really? 

Dan Douglas:
And so mine was the Bible. Yeah. So whenever I had time and they were, you know, you had downtime. It wasn’t tons, but whenever you had 30 minutes to an hour between things and you had nothing else to do and you’re bored to tears. I was reading the Bible and it also became kind of a respite. On Sundays you could go to church and they would give you that hour and a half or whatever for 15 minutes to get there, 15 minutes to get back, an hour for the service. And so it was an opportunity to go and, you know, socialize and be there with a chaplain and be able to kind of worship and things like that. So it was kind of a little respite that was built into my training too. So it allowed me to kind of just continue to build and grow. But when I came out of that, it was getting ready to go into deployment. It was still there. It was all. It was basically my life was just basically immersed in. Be a great soldier, try to be a good Christian and learn as much as you can about it. I’m very much analytical mind in terms of wanting to understand and wanting to absorb things. So I just, I. Whatever I could get my hands on to read or whatever I could do to put more of my life into it for really that first year and a half in my. In my army career was basically committed to that. So. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wow, this is fascinating. One more question and then I’m going to ask you the big one. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? But I’m curious. Were you. How did you find the culture in Iraq? Were you able to get to know local folks and be in and amongst that? And how were you received? And how did you receive them? And especially with your newfound burgeoning faith? 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah, not as much out in the community at that point. It was very much still a warfare type environment. But they did have what we called local nationals that would come in and work on the base to do certain infrastructure things as part of their project to also try to give more money and help out the economy of Iraq a little bit. So they bring on some of these local nationals to do things like clean the roads, you know, pour certain concrete things. They’d help them build structures that we needed built on base, or they’d have them kind of come in as contractors to run plumbing and electricity and they’d have them kind of do that work and you’d have to pull security for them. So they’d assign you and maybe one or two other people to go watch three or five of them do this work to make sure they’re not doing anything nefarious or, you know, trying to plant bombs or pace off the distance between structures and the outside wall or anything like that. So you’d have to keep eyes on them for those things. And there was opportunities to have those conversations. It was kind of interesting. A few times I’d get in to like a truck with one of them. They’d be driving to their next site and I’d be sitting in the passenger seat and they’d have the Mother Mary or something like that on their dashboard and they’d, you know, loot. They’d be, you know, over side themselves just like, look, look, I’m Christian. I’m Christian too. Just like you try to like relate that way. So there was some of that going on and then some of them were very much. Not that you’re very much committed to their Islamic faith, but then they try to talk about how we have so much things in common with our faith and they’re always looking for some way to try to buddy up with you. We’re comrades in this, we’re friends. Like, I’m not here, I’m not your enemy. Like so. And part of that is just self protective nature. I think they want to make sure that you had rapport with them just in case something did go sideways, that maybe they weren’t your target instead. So some of that’s smart. A younger soldier like myself at the time didn’t maybe understand that. Now in hindsight, I’m like, oh, yeah, those guys were a lot smarter than I gave them credit for. Yeah, so. 

Jeff Johnson:
So you were, I wouldn’t call you cynical about that kind of thing, but you were just guarded in a, in a realistic way. 

Dan Douglas:
Right. I not cynical at the time. I have grown cynical and part of that was my struggle with the military later on when I wanted to step away from being a Green Beret and didn’t think I could do it anymore. I had grown cynical with the nature of our foreign policy, the nature of our mission and what we’re actually trying to accomplish and whether or not it even works. Yeah. So if you’ve heard of blowback and things like that from policies I had started kind of seeing a lot of what we’re doing as stirring the pot. And then we rationalize our actions in that region based on things that we caused to happen. 

Jeff Johnson:
You mean instead of bringing a spirit of peace, it was more agitating? 

Dan Douglas:
Oh, very much, yeah. There’s very little of it aligned with my faith. And that was the hardest part for me. Not only was I going over there spending time away from my now firstborn son, my wife, to do these actions in these other countries, but it Was ignoring the dignity of a people, completely ignoring the image of Christ, the image of God that they are also bearers of, even if they don’t share our faith. 

Jeff Johnson:
Right. 

Dan Douglas:
And just the amount of unrest and power vacuums that we’ve created in the region, I, I couldn’t rationalize. I grew pretty cynical later on in my career. So it was hard for me to stay committed and really be passionate about my service at that point. And that was when I realized I was a liability to my team as well. So I wanted to step away from being on a team. And that’s what, that was part of the reason I went to PA school. I wouldn’t have told them that. I didn’t put that on my letter of intent to go to PA school. Like, hey, I’m not committed to being in the army anymore. It was more like, I gotta wait, get away from my team. Because I like them, I love them too much to put them in a position where I felt like I was making them vulnerable. And I knew that liability was too much of a risk for a 12 man detachment. So I wanted to get away from that as soon as possible. And I was able to. The army allowed me that within the confines of what they authorized, to be able to go do something else and something better for me and my family, but also better for my team. I think at the time. 

Jeff Johnson:
Okay, I’m trying to, I’m trying to bridle myself from asking you another question because I have tons more, but I’m sure there’ll be something on the other side of this. But, but why don’t you tell me now, Dan Douglas, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? 

Dan Douglas:
It’s gonna sound maybe like a cop out. The hardest thing for me was never the physical aspects. I’m not a huge physical specimen, right. I wasn’t gonna be the fastest runner or the biggest, strongest guy on my team. It wasn’t intellectual either. Those were fun for me. Intellectual pursuits are fun. I, I love the maze. I love the, the, you know, problem to solve. To me, it’s really an emotional or spiritual thing. The hardest obstacle for me, I think, is learning to truly empathize with other people who disagree with me. And I think probably the most courageous step I’ve ever had is being willing to be transparent with others because it is a vulnerability. But I see that as the most masculine thing that you can possibly do is, hey, I, I can do these things. I’m fully capable, but I am still vulnerable. I Do still have weaknesses. And being willing to be transparent about those weaknesses with others takes a lot of courage. I hate doing it. I’m still not great at it, But I have gotten better. I’m improving at it. But it would be an easy thing to be like, oh, I went out there and I was getting shot at, and I shot back, like, sure, that happened. But at that time, it was more about me protecting myself and protecting the guys to my left and right. It didn’t feel courageous in the moment. I was just. Just doing things to, you know, out of training, out of habit. You just kind of fall into the nature of what those things are. I think challenging that inner habit of myself and doing something that I didn’t want to do, being vulnerable, that took a lot more courage for me than probably anything else I’ve done in my life. 

Jeff Johnson:
I said, no, I think that I’ve. I totally get what your answer is, Dan. Can you give us an example of that scenario? 

Dan Douglas:
So my faith. My faith was one, right? 

Jeff Johnson:
Hearing that with people that. Your. Your fellow enlisted folks. 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah, yeah, that could. That can sometimes have been a challenge. And sometimes I got very defensive with that, especially when I thought I was intellectually, you know, in a better standing than they were. So sometimes I wasn’t very loving with that. But then being willing to admit that further, not just, hey, I’ve got a faith, but also, I’m struggling to really care for you, and I aligns with my faith and being willing to be transparent about that, too. So there’s a lot of arrogance on both sides, and sometimes we’re not willing to empathize with the people who disagree with us, and being willing to just tell them, I. I don’t like you. Right? I don’t like you. I don’t like your worldview. But I. I want to love you. I want to like you. I want to be able to talk to you and get along with you and just telling them straight up, I struggle with this because I think you’re a jerk or because, you know, I think you’re an arrogant person and it’s hard for me to really, truly care about you in that. But then also being willing to, you know, offer that for them, even though I don’t want to. So there was some specific. I mean, I had interactions, especially on that first deployment, where between reading books, I’d go down to, like, the local. Local green bean coffee, and I’d sit there and I just have debates with atheists and Wiccans and other people in the. In the service that we just sit there and we would debate faith topics. Being willing to put myself out there and private first class, talking to E5s and E6s and telling them all that I think they’re wrong, their life choices and stuff are going to take them to hell. That not greatest, right? I wasn’t very good at it, but that did take some vulnerability on my part. But really later in life, being willing to admit, like, Green Beret, right? What can’t I do? And being willing to look at my team and be like, I. I don’t. I can’t do this for you guys anymore, right? I don’t want to tell you this. I don’t want to tell you I’m weak. I don’t want to tell you that I’m. I’m afraid of the vulnerability I bring to this team. But I. I need to step away. I. I saw it a lot with my fellow Green Berets, especially one, I won’t name him because I don’t want to call him out like that. But struggling really bad with some PTSD from prior deployments, prior to me getting to the unit and watching how much he struggled with just telling us that he was struggling, that it wasn’t even necessarily him saying, hey, I’m having these nightmares, or I. I can’t function right now because of these things. He was better off with that. It was him wanting to come to the team and be vulnerable that he struggled with. He couldn’t feel safe telling us, I’m weak. He couldn’t feel safe telling us, I’m really struggling. It wasn’t the struggle that he struggled with. It was the idea that he couldn’t tell us his team and let us down. That watching him struggle with that kind of pulled the veil back from my eyes. And I was like, oh, no, no. Like, this dude’s a stone cold killer, right? This dude is elite. And he is struggling and he is passionately wanting to avoid having this topic of conversation with us because he’s struggling with these emotional and psychological obstacles in his way right now and really wanting to be like, okay, how do I avoid being that? How do I avoid letting it become such an issue in my life that I’m not willing to admit I’m not ready for this anymore or I can’t do this anymore? And that was then, I think, what started a lot of my walk and being willing to say, I am now a liability to my team, myself, and I need to step away from this. And being willing to admit That I think took more courage probably than it would have just to stay on the team and plug away. It would have been the easy path. 

Jeff Johnson:
So, Dan, I think that’s going to resonate with a lot of people, and I think a lot of people are going to empathize and be encouraged by what you just said. I remember having a. I’ll never forget this. I remember having a fight with my wife. And I’ve been happily married for, you know, over 25 years. I mean, I’m just. I love my wife so much and. But we had. We had one of those rows one time and I called a friend and my friend went to. I think it was second Corinthians, chapter 12. You know, when Paul is talks about his friend that was taken up to the third. Heaven has a thorn in his side, and he asked God to remove it three times. And God says he’s not going to do it. He says, my strength is made perfect in your weakness. And my friend coached me on. We always look for our strength, you know, in taking control of a situation, but the strength is really found in our weakness and to your language vulnerability and then letting God come in and do the thing. And I remember that was. That was exactly what I needed to hear. Instead of saying, I’m mad and this and this and this, you know, demanding things from my wife, instead, I was able to look her in the eye and say, I love you and I’m scared that we’re going down the wrong road here, you know, and then that was what. Uncracked it and let it back in. So I. Yeah, I commend you for what you’re saying. That is a very courageous thing. 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah, I think it leans back to. I was reading another book here recently. Well, I’m still reading it. I’m not done with it yet. But he talks a lot about going from a dependency mindset. Like, we’re born into dependency, right? You need mom to feed you need dad to clothe you. You need to kind of work through these processes of like, I can’t do anything on my own. And then we kind of work towards independence and a lot of us stop there, where it’s like, I’m very independent, I’m very strong. And the people who struggle with independence are looked down upon. Right. If you’re an adult and you’re not independent, then you’re a problem. Right. If you’re still dependent as an adult, we don’t like that. He says, that’s not enough, though. People get to independence. And they feel like they’ve. they’ve drone and they’ve done stuff. And there’s a. This transition, though, of that vulnerability or admitting those weaknesses is going to interdependence, where it’s like, no, I am. I can fully be independent, but I recognize that I am stronger when I’m working in collaboration with other people who can, you know, supplant or fulfill where I’m weak, where I am not strong, with the areas where I am not good at. If I have a team around me, if I have a family around me, if I have friends around me who can fill those gaps, I’m way better. I’m way stronger. We are better off if we do that. And so I, as he was kind of working through those three different stages, I was like, oh, yeah, no, like, that’s where I’m at right now. I was like, I’m very independent. I can do this all on my own, but I need to move towards that interdependent state and start relying more on people around me to fill my weaknesses, because there are some things I just am not good at or can’t do. So, yeah. 

Jeff Johnson:
Do you think we live in a. With that being the definition of courage, that selfless thing, and you talking about being vulnerable is the courageous act. Do we live in a courageous culture now? I mean, no, it’s not. 

Jeff Johnson:
It’s lacking. We need more of it. 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah. I think it’s the nature of the beast that we have right now. I think politics, to be a politician, I think, brings the worst out of what is to be human. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Dan Douglas:
There are very few exceptions of that I think can be transparent, vulnerable, stand on principle, and still be good politicians. Most good politicians are just generally not good people. Right. The podcast I listened to actually on the way home from a meeting this morning, they were talking about Gavin Newsom recently. He’s trying to kind of like. Like, change his perception. He’s trying to, on his podcast, talk to people who are from different political persuasions, people who disagree with him. He’s trying to kind of present himself as somebody who’s willing to grapple with that. But he’s lying, right? Like, he. He can’t do that, like most politicians can’t. You can’t ignore what you’ve been responsible for in the past without being deceitful. It’s impossible. And I think that’s the problem, is politicians get so wrapped up into, I support this policy. I’m voting for this thing. I’m going to run on this platform. And then when those things fail, in order for them to be good at being politics, right, Good at politicianing, they have to be able to stand up and basically own this. And what they do is they almost always deflect. It’s always running off, beating off water off their back like, this is. It’s not my fault. It wasn’t these things. It was always the opposite that ruined this for us. It’s never, my policies suck and I’m just bad at it. And it seems like the only ones who are really good at it are the ones who are really also the ones who think I vote no for everything. It’s not my fault. This failed because the program failed. And I told you the program would fail. And I voted against it. Right. And that’s why I say it’s exceedingly rare that somebody’s up there on principle who can stand up when there’s an outcome that’s adverse and say, it’s really not my fault. So they can stand on principle and talk to the people about it and not be deceitful. Most of them are running on some program or platform. And I’m going to impose this on the 49, 0.9, or the 50 minus 1 vote who didn’t vote for me. I’m gonna pose my platform on them. And then when it fails, I’ve got to come up with some excuse. There’s always a reason for it, and so it brings out the worst in us. So when everything becomes political, when everything gets centralized in terms of government force, I think there’s just a nature of that just leads it to being invulnerable. Right. You have to be like Teflon Don. You have to be that guy that nothing can stick to you. You have to be some sleazeball. I mean, I don’t know how else to. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Dan Douglas:
Say. That’s probably the most redeeming. I can. I can lay what that is. 

Jeff Johnson:
I get what you’re saying, and it’s not. 

Dan Douglas:
And it’s not good. So. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah, well, it’s. Don’t you think you can. You can sense that mendacity, that inauthenticity a mile away? I mean, there’s great capacity for people to change, but when people change, you know, it. You know, when there’s a. There’s an air of humility and, you know, again, to your point, vulnerability. And you can tell when they’re authentic, but when they’re not, I feel like it’s just. It’s too on the nose. It’s easy to pick out maybe. 

Dan Douglas:
I think what we struggle with, I think what we struggle with as people or as a population isn’t necessarily the person being inauthentic. It’s the people that surround around that person. Right. The people who envelop that person with their own personalities. So I might have a few other people who I’ve met, and those people are authentic, and then they kind of say, hey, this guy’s a good guy. I haven’t met that guy. But based on, you know, two degrees of Kevin Bacon type relationship, I’m going, okay, I might be able to trust him because I can trust Jeff. And Jeff told me this is a good guy. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Dan Douglas
And now that guy is now promoting somebody else. And so now we’re 3 degrees or 4 degrees or 5 degrees away from the person. So it’s hard to check the authenticity when the only relationship I have with he’s the President of the United States. Right? I don’t know, man. I’ve never met him. I’ve never shaken his hand. I’ve never seen him in person. Is he authentic? I don’t know. I see the televised media version of the president and that’s not authentic. So the only way I can grade his authenticity is based on who he surrounds himself with. And if I know anybody who knows those people or who those people surround themselves with, and do I know anybody who knows those people? And so they’re so far removed from us, right. The people that. I think it becomes really difficult for us to really gauge the authenticity when it comes to politicians. So there are a few that I think have been able to come across. I, Again, I’m not. This isn’t supposed to be political, so I’m not trying to, like, hey, I, you know, endorse so and so, but they’re. They’re few, right? Just the nature, I think, of the political class and what it means to be a politician makes you inauthentic. I think it makes you have to try to remain invulnerable because as soon as you show a vulnerability, you get attacked. And so now your political career is, you know, wavering. It’s. It’s weakening because it’s just the nature of what that beast is, and I think just leads to the worst of the worst, rising to the top there. 

Jeff Johnson:
How do we. How do we. How do we increase courage in our society then now? I mean, how do we call out to our better angels, as they say, you know, and. And incite people to be more courageous as opposed to. I I just feel like people wear the same clothes and they have the same haircut and they drive the same car, and, you know, everybody wants to fit in and go along. 

Dan Douglas:
This is because my. My hair is spinning, Jeff. It’s the only reason I got short again. I wanted to grow it out on top, but it’s thinning. My wife was funny finally honest with me that I’ve got some bald spots showing up there. So I decided I’m shortening it down. 

Jeff Johnson:
There you go. 

Dan Douglas:
My head looks absolutely ugly bald, so I don’t think I’ll ever go completely bald. But I gotta get. 

Jeff Johnson:
You and I both. Yeah, but you know what I’m saying? I mean, how do you. How do you pull that out of people? Be more courageous? How do you encourage folks? 

Dan Douglas:
I would like to think that’s partly what I was doing here on this podcast. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Right here, right now. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Dan Douglas:
When I have been vulnerable, I could probably spend a lot more time pridefully telling you, like, here’s what I’ve accomplished in life, right? I failed out of college, went into the army, but then I’ve got four degrees, I got my associates, two bachelor’s, and I got my master’s degree in physician assistant studies. So I was able to be successful, right? I was a Green Beret, for crying out loud. Like, it’s not the elite of the elite, but it’s the elite, right? There are. There are organizations and elements higher than that in terms of training and their proficiency in doing their job, but there are. There aren’t very many. I can. I can tote all of my great things. I can tell you all of the wonderful things that I bring, all of the awesome things I’ve done in my life, but the reality is that I still struggle, and I still have weaknesses, and I can be vulnerable with that. And as soon as I’m able to be transparent about that and share those weaknesses with you, like, I need you guys to help fill my weaknesses, just like I can help fill yours. And I think once we understand that and we start really grabbing, grasping, embracing that interdependency mindset of, like, it is my job to be as strong as I can be so that the weakest link in this chain, if that’s me, is not very weak, but also recognizing I’m not the chain, right? I am just a link in this chain, and this whole chain needs to be strong. So what can I do to strengthen that person to my left and my right? What can I do to help preserve their dignity, to Help strengthen them, grow them, help them get past their obstacles and get them to see themselves as part of this overall chain and this interdependent linkage that we can all grow together. With that, though, I think naturally we start ignoring the politics. I don’t need somebody in D.C. Telling me what my neighbor and I can do in Altoona, Iowa. Right. I don’t need them stepping into that void because it’s. It’s kind of like a marriage. Like my wife and I, this thing is so good. Let’s get the government involved. No, I don’t need them in this. Like, they don’t need to be involved in our relationship. 

Jeff Johnson:
Right, right. 

Dan Douglas:
And that doesn’t change between you and I either. I didn’ to, you know, reach out to anybody in the federal government to be like, hey, am I okay to talk to Jeff? Right after we spoke, you said, hey, would you be interested in coming on? I was like, absolutely, let’s do this. But we don’t need to get any governing agency involved in this. It’s a mutual exchange. We both voluntarily are doing it. When people understand that local, voluntary interactions with one another really are what moves the world. They’re what powers every single organization. It’s what powers every single relationship we have, then we start realizing they. We really don’t need them to do this. And now maybe we can remove them from it or bring it more local. You know, Altoona’s got problems that Urbandale doesn’t have. Des Moines area has problems that Cedar Rapids doesn’t have. Iowa has problems that Minnesota doesn’t have. Like, we don’t need all of this massive, burgeoning larger body of oligarchs or bureaucrats off somewhere else telling us what we can and can’t do here do. Let’s decide it for ourselves. And I think once we decide that, you’ll fewer things become political because they become relational. So instead of us trying to use politics, government and stuff to kind of impose our will one another, it becomes very much relational. Like, I’m not going to help you do that because I think it’s bad for you. I do want to help you do that because I think it’s good for you. So those that synapse that change. I’m more aware of Jeff’s problems than I am Donald Trump’s problems. So let me help Jeff and let’s keep Trump out of this. Right? He doesn’t need to be involved in our interactions because you and I can help each other better than he’s ever going to help either one of us. So I think that mentality starts moving us down that path. And ultimately I think that comes from faith. I think it’s the willingness to step out and say, I am made in the image of Christ and so are you. So I need to respect you just like you should respect me. And I will command that respect when I walk into the room. Because I’m not going to let you dictate to me how I’m going to decide to live my life, how I’m going to relate to other people. But similarly, I’m going to respect your right to make those determinations for yourself as well. And then once we come to that idea, suddenly it’s irrelevant what’s happening over there. We can, we can move past, we can move forward in life and not necessarily worry about what is going on outside of us and these fears that we can’t control or influence. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah, well, Dan, that’s well said. I don’t know that there’s any more that needs to be flushed out with that answer because, you know, we are from a Christian worldview and I share that with you. Obviously we’re all considered parts of the body of Christ. So somebody’s a tooth and somebody’s a toenail and somebody’s the eye and somebody’s the heart and somebody’s the liver and all that kind of stuff. And we’re all necessary, every single one of us. And so we need to be interacting and working together with one another. And I love how you put it about when you did your tour in Iraq, you know, even if they don’t recognize it, they’re made in the image of God, you know, as well. And so all of our fellow man are really people that we’re concerned about. And we’re only going to get down to that if we’re vulnerable and authentic and humble and interacting with each other. Yeah. Okay. Dan, what are you doing now? Now you’re. Now you’re out of the Army. You spent 20 years in the army. You did your bit as a Green Beret. Okay. You’re holding up your hoodie. Green Gray Realty. That’s a great name. 

Dan Douglas:
I still work part time as a physician assistant. I got bills to pay. But I started my own business doing real estate. I work with Agency Iowa. So first of all, they’re my broker. Agency Iowa. Mark Charter is the broker owner there. Phenomenal organization. Right. Allows me full flexibility in terms of branding how I want to do my business and allows me a lot of flexibility in terms of. Of how I work with my clients and how I can provide value to them. So phenomenal. Shout out to Mark. I appreciate everything he’s done for me, but, yeah, I wanted to hang a shingle. I wanted to start something that was my own something that was my own and build it. Something I didn’t have the opportunity to do. While being moved around in the military and moving different jobs and having deployments in between cycles and stuff, I never had the opportunity to really own anything. And this was that I wanted to see if I could do something and the opportunity to get my license. During my last tour, I was in Korea for a few months before I retired, being able to get my licensure online before I came home, and then basically aligned with the broker and started doing real estate. Was nice, but I’ve been doing that for over a year now and I’m doing fine. We’re doing great, right? Everything’s moving. It’s looking successful. So. 

Jeff Johnson:
So if somebody wants to buy a house or sell a house or build. 

Dan Douglas:
A house, there’s only one option. It’s Dan Douglas and Green Beret Realty. 

Jeff Johnson:
That’s it. 

Dan Douglas:
That’s it. No. Yeah, absolutely. It’s residential right now. I don’t do anything with commercial. I do know people who are in commercial. So if you. No matter what the real estate project is, if you want it, you can call me and I’ll help you find the right answer. I also don’t do anything with residential rentals yet. I may get into some investment properties later or do some property management, but I know how to get you to the people that do. So no matter your housing need, I can help you figure it out right now. But I specialize in helping people buy and sell residential real estate right now. 

Jeff Johnson:
So this is not it. This is not a marketing thing. We’re here to talk about courage. This is the courageous Crossroads podcast. But people are going to be interested in dealing with somebody who’s authentic and vulnerable and humble if they’re. If they have a need. And so we’ll put. We’ll for sure put your contact information in with program notes with this podcast so people can look you up if they’re interested. And I wish you a tremendous amount of luck with that, Dan. I can’t think of a better person than somebody you can trust. 

Dan Douglas:
I’ll be honest, too. It doesn’t have to be necessarily for real estate. If you just want me to come speak to a group, if you want me to do something like that too, I can do that. As well. I can come by, do a Q A if you want me to come try to convince your niece or your nephew not to join the service, I’ll do as well. Or, or on the other hand, if you just want me to educate them so they make an intelligent decision and they don’t buy into the recruiter’s lies, I’ll come talk to them about that too. But yeah, no, if you guys have any questions, for sure, if you just want some, you know, suggested reading material on a particular subject, I have read just about anything I can get my hands on. So I’m still reading more today. So maybe you’ve got something I should read. Send that to me too. I’ll put it on my list. 

Jeff Johnson:
We’ll, we’ll have all your contact stuff in the show notes for sure. Dan, anything else that you want to say about the topic of courage while we wrap up here? 

Dan Douglas:
You know what? I’ll just a call to action for everybody out there. Have some courage. If you feel like you don’t know what’s going on, don’t be afraid to ask why. Don’t be afraid to ask the questions to figure it out. And don’t be afraid to let everybody else know in the room that you don’t understand it or that you’re not comfortable or that you need more time. Right. All of that needs to be restored, respected, and we can all do that together and honestly, as an adage in the army, but somebody else in the room probably is asking the same questions that you are and nobody’s willing to speak up. Be the person who’s willing to and everybody else will respect you for that. 

Jeff Johnson:
So wonderful. Dan Douglas, Iowan, Green Beret and mighty man of God. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing with our listeners today. I really appreciate it. 

Dan Douglas:
Yeah, thanks, Jeff. I appreciate it. 

Thank you for joining us today on Courageous. If you’d like to hear more about the work and ministry being done at Crossroads Apologetics, please visit our home on the web@crossroadsapologetics.org Would you or someone you know like to be featured on Courageous? Send us an email at infoorossroadsapologetics.com or infoossroadsapologetics.org telling us about the most courageous thing you’ve ever done.