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[music] This Tennessee author is from New .. our country for five years as a Marine, rising to the rank of corporal.

Life eventually brought him to Jackson, Tennessee, and he had some tough times before finding his wife, and on one rainy day, a little ball of fluff.

Straight ahead on Tennessee Writes, we're meeting Tennessee author Andy Vistrand.

We'll find out how this little ball of fluff inspired his book and how he's using his story to help others.

He's a former police officer and Bethel graduate.

We'll hear about his story of fighting for our country, to fighting for himself and others.

Pour a fresh cup of coffee and snuggle into your comfy chair.

Tennessee Writes starts right now.

Books about Tennessee.

Books that come from Tennessee authors.

Books and stories with a Tennessee twist.

West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee Writes.

Welcome to Tennessee Writes, the show that gets up close and personal with Tennessee authors.

My name is Peter Noll.

This is the show that goes beyond the book to learn about its authors from their childhood to where their stories come from.

They even offer advice if you want to write a book yourself.

Plus, we put the authors on a stopwatch and try and have them answer as many questions as they can in the lightning round.

Tennessee Writes welcomes author Andy Vistrand, a New York native who served five years in the Marines before finding his way to Tennessee.

He's a graduate of Bethel University and a former police officer.

His chance encounter with the little dog is the inspiration for his book he hopes will help others through tough times.

Tennessee Writes welcomes Andy Vistrand.

Thank you, sir.

Andy.

Thank you for coming on the show.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

First of all, thank you for your service.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it.

We love to support veterans.

I'm a son of a veteran, and the station really works hard to honor our local veterans.

Thank you for your service.

Yes, sir.

My pleasure.

That service was you got out of high school from New York.

Where in New York?

Panama, New York.

It's about 30 minutes from Jamestown, about two hours south of Buffalo.

You graduated and then you went right into the Marines, correct?

Yes, sir.

I actual.. I hadn't even graduated at that point.

I went into what they call the delayed entry program.

You can spend a number of months on delayed entry program before you ship.

I actually was what they call a poolie.

We went to regular meetings, built camaraderie, physically exercised with each other, and all that stuff.

You built a little family before you even go.

I left immediately after high school.

Why the Marines?

I figured if I was going to do it, I'm going to do the best.

That and also the Marines' uniforms are by far the best-looking uniforms.

[laughs] The PT gear sucks, but the dress uniforms are fant.. Dress blues, there's nothing like them.

Tell us about your service.

From my research, you had a desk job.

Yes, that's right.

I was a UH-1N Huey hel.. There was other collateral duties that were part of that whole thing.

As far as the crew chief portion goes, I was more like the in-flight engineer, also known as the mechanic of the aircraft.

Basically, I would help the pilots land in confined area landings.

We would also man large machine guns in the back.

We did route reconnaissance for-- What time period and what area?

I did three tours over there, 2005, 2006, and 2007, respectfully.

In where?

In Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Al Anbar province is one of the largest provinces in Iraq.

It's in, I want to say, northwestern Iraq, geographically speaking.

A good portion of Al Anbar in that northwestern corner actually borders on Syria.

We literally were within earshot of the Syrian border.

Matter of fact, we flew very close to it several times.

Three tours of duty.

That means, did you keep signing up, or you had to originally sign up for five?

No, sir.

We were on a death rotation.

Matter of fact, they deactivated my helicopter squadron, HMLE-269, here about two years ago, three years ago now.

It was December of 2022 when they deactivated it.

Now, why they did this, I'm not sure.

I think they talk about force readiness and redesigning the Marine Corps for an electronic or technologically advanced battlefield.

They stood down one of our HMLE units, which we never really understood why they would do that, because there was only two on the East Coast anyway.

That said, when they deactivated the helicopter squadron, they made a little documentary.

They interviewed some of the commanding officers from my past unit.

I've had an opportunity to check it out.

It's on YouTube out there.

Colonel Scott Jensen, he was my second commanding officer, the one who took us on our second tour.

He made it very clear that we were going to be doing repeat pumps because, basically, us and that sister squadron, the two HMLEs that are on the East Coast, they were round-robining over there.

We would go over and replace them in theater.

They would come back to the States and fulfill their role here.

Then they would come back over there, and we would come back.

It was just a flip-flop.

It got to a point where it was like Groundhog Day.

Probably, I would say, we call it the rep, replacement in place.

The rep or the transition from one squadron to another, it was seamless because we got so used to doing it.

Matter of fact, they had asked me-- I was short time and getting ready to get out in 2008.

I was at the end of my contract.

They asked me, and they were like, "Hey, do you want to stay on and do a fourth?"

At the time, I was wore out.

We all were.

We were all burnt out doing it that many.. Literally, if you stop and think about it, logistically speaking, again, this is the greatest military on the face of the planet.

We do a lot of things that many other militaries probably would never be able to mimic.

This was interesting because we would go over for seven months, come back for five months.

Now, during that five-month downtime when we were here in the States, you got to understand that there would be leave blocks, both post-deployment and then pre-deployment.

You're talking 50% of the squadron would take their leave the first two weeks we got back.

Those people would come back.

The next group of 50% would go.

By the time you get done factoring it in, there's really only three months' worth of training time between post-leave and pre-deployment leave blocks respectfully.

90 days to train aerial gunners and everything else, it's a lot.

Of course, the whole time you're balancing the availability of aircraft, which, let's be real about that, that's a very complex thing in and of itself.

There's a lot of things that play into that, logistically speaking.

Sure.

Your five years is up.

What happened then?

At the end of my five-year enlistment, they have what they call a substantive tax class.

You go through that, and it's a crash course to reintegrating into civilian life.

Now, I'm happy to say that nowadays it's very different.

They have something called Skillbridge, where you can actually go for the last year of your contract.

You can actually intern with a company and already be a shoe-in as soon as you separate.

That was not the luxury that I had when I got out.

Many were in that same boat.

I wasn't the only one.

I wasn't exclusive.

Would you say you ending up in Jackson, Tennessee was sort of a roll of the dice?

It was.

What I did, there was a recruiter at SEPS and TAPS for CSX Transportation.

They had a bunch of Fortune 500 companies that came out.

They were pitching, "Hey, we want federal employees.

We want people that are reliable, people that are disciplined, that sort of thing.

You fit the bill.

We want you."

I didn't realize it at the time, just how economically driven-- looking back on this now, I was naive because railroad is a very economically driven industry.

I never factored that in.

I always thought, "Hey, a job's a job regardless."

I never really paid attention to the intricacies.

I've always been a closet junkie railroader.

I loved trains from the time I was a boy.

I was like, "Man, I'm going to do this."

Anything that I've done in my lifetime, I threw my entire effort at this thing.

It was crazy because when I left New River, the base that I was stationed at, Marine Corps Air Station New River, when I left New River, I was pretty confident that's what I was going to be doing with myself.

Even though I didn't have a concrete plan already in place, I went home and as soon as I got done unpacking and everything, being on terminal leave here, I had to make a decision.

I got out June 3rd physically from the Marine Corps.

I was just eating up my leave time that was left over.

In that time, I spent hours on the internet, basically trying to apply for different jobs.

Huntington, West Virginia, was one of the places they kept coming up.

They kept sending me, "Hey, we want you to come down here."

I was going to interview with them.

Unfortunately, they kept backing it up.

The spot in Bruceton, Tennessee, came open.

I jumped at it, and they invited me down here.

It was crazy because I'd never been to Jackson, Tennessee a day in my life.

I show up here.

I literally left at two o'clock in .. once it was June the 26th, and arrived here late in the afternoon on that same day.

T The next morning, I got up, went to the interview.

I was up at five o'clock, showered, shaved, did the whole thing.

Dressed, suit, the whole nine yards.

Go downstairs to the actual interview location.

They were having a big pool of candidates coming in.

It was funny because then they were like, "Was there anyone that can't attend the Railroad Education Development Institute in August?"

At this point in time, I still lived in New York, still hanging my hat up there.

I raised my hand.

They're like, "What do you g.. if you don't mind me asking?"

I was like, "Look, I just got out of the .. I drove 800 miles one way for this interview."

He was like, "Where are you from?"

I said, "New York."

He's like, "Oh my God."

He's like, "We're going to talk to you separately here."

[chuckles] In between, in a break, they took me int.. and they were talking to me one-on-one.

They're like, "Man, we want you.

Anybody who's going to make a trip 800 miles one way for just an interview, no guarantee of a job, that's commitment we want."

I was pretty much assured a job before I left there.

[music] Andy, let's delve into Rescued.

Yes, sir.

Tell everyone, if you had to encapsulate the book, what is it about quickly?

Briefly, it's about the dog that saved my life from some very dark and troubling times.

Those dark and troubling times were when you were in Jackson.

You came here for a job.

That job didn't pan out.

You didn't have a job.

In the story, it's very like, "I barely had food in my apartment."

Towards the end, it got really ugly.

Of course, we're talking, I'd never been laid off in my adult life ever.

When I moved down here, I was like, I'm trying to prove it, not just to myself, but to my parents, the world, the military, because a lot of people are still watching.

At that time, we had the Marine Online program.

You update your address there.

They keep track of you because you're technically in the individual ready reserve program at that point.

They can recall you at any time.

There's a three or four-year window on the backside of that, that they keep you.

They want to know where you're at.

They want to know what you're doing.

They want to know that you're succeeding.

It was all eyes on you kind of thing.

When the job didn't work out and I had to draw unemployment, I was so ashamed of myself because I was in a situation where I literally inserted myself here to make a new life.

I didn't know anybody.

That may have been my biggest problem.

I tried to push that aside and just focus on the job.

I did pretty good for the first couple of months while I was able to hold the job, but then, when January 28th, 2009, I don't know if you remember that day, we had 12 and a half inches of snow on the ground here.

It was a record breaker.

That was the day I got called from CSX.

It wasn't even a person.

It was a robot, more or less telling .. That was the beginning of my troubles.

I spent nearly a year and a half, which felt like an eternity, laid off.

December 15th of 2009, I went to go get my mail.

I was getting to the point where I was reclusive.

I was doing all this stuff at nighttime under the cover of darkness.

These are the things that you deal wi.. with combat stress-related issues and everything, trying to distance yourself.

I went down to get my mail that night.

That's when I met Dozer, and my life changed for the better.

The rest of your story with Dozer is the story of Rescued.

Let's fast forward.

You're married now?

Yes, sir.

With children?

Yes, sir.

Two.

You've been a police officer?

Yes, sir.

You went back to s.. Yes, sir.

What did you study there?

I actually went into business management.

You're still here.

What is your hopes with Rescued?

What made you go, "I need to tell this story in a book"?

Interestingly enough, I'd always wanted to write a book.

Just never had the funds to do it.

Didn't know what the subject matter would be that I want to write about.

We had just adopted a new dog from the Jackson Animal Care Center here locally.

I took that dog to the vet for her very first checkup.

I met a lady in there by the name of Ms.

Kim.

This was at North Madison Animal Hospital.

I was telling her the story, and she's like, "Oh my God, you need to write a book."

Bam, it was like the light switch got turned on.

That was what started the whole thing.

[music] We have come to the segment in Tennessee Writes, we call the lightning round.

Andy, we're going to put two minutes on the clock, and we're going to ask you a series of book literary questions.

The key is to answer as many as you can.

If you don't know an answer, just say pass.

The clock will begin after my first question.

Are you ready to play?

Yes, sir.

What actor would you want to star in the movie based on your book?

Vin Diesel.

First book you can remember reading as a child?

The Little Engine That Could.

Where is your favorite place to read?

Genuinely on the couch.

What is your least favorite place to read?

I'd say in a combat zone.

[laughs] What books has most influenced your life?

This is going to sound strange, but Goosebumps.

I love that series.

What's your favorite magazine to read?

Semper Fi or Leatherneck.

How many books are on your nightstand right now?

Oh, man, I've got at least a dozen, one of which is the Bible.

Do you own more paperback books or hardcover books?

Paperback.

What's your favorite movie based on a book?

I can't recall the name of it, but it's about dogs.

I can't recall the actor's name.

What's the last audiobook you listened to?

I have not listened to an audiobook.

What's the most expensive book you've ever purchased?

I want to say it was probably an aircraft book, 50 bucks.

Name the book you think everyone should read.

Rescued, of course.

If you were stranded on a deserted island with only one book, what would it be?

Rescued seems fitting to me.

What is the first book that made you cry?

Oh, man, I'll pass on this one.

Name the person you gave your first copy of your book to.

Holy moly.

Probably my parents.

If you could pick a celebrity to narrate your book, who would it be?

Morgan Freeman.

What's one book you are reading right now?

[music] Andy, we always love to hear authors in their own words read the spoken words that they wrote on paper in their books.

Would you mind reading a short selection from your book?

Absolutely.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

I'm going to read chapter 2 here.

Now, every one of these chapters is framed by a Bible verse.

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.

If either of them falls down, one can help the other up, but pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.

That's Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.

Chapter 2 is entitled The Meat.

December 15, 2009, I was in no hurry.

I waited until around 9 PM to go get my mail to avoid human contact.

I left my apartment and turned right to descend the stairwell to the sidewalk.

At the bottom of the stairs, a small brown puppy stared up at me.

He was very friendly and followed me to the office building, which housed the mailboxes for the entire complex.

After I collected my mail, he trailed me back across the parking lot.

I returned to my apartment with puppy in tow.

It was mid-December in the south, although it never got as cold as it had in my native New York state.

I could not leave him outside.

I let him in, and he immediately found his way to my master bedroom, where he fell fast asleep under the skirt of my queen-size bed.

I called my girlfriend, and I told her that I had a puppy in m.. which surprised her.

After her shift was over, she came home from Somerville to bring a kennel to me.

The dog was a handsome mixed-breed puppy.

He had brown eyes, was predominantly brown in color.

Had a little white blotch on his chest.

He seemed to be in good health, other than having fleas.

Still, I had no intention of becoming a pet owner.

"If I can't care for myself, I can't care for an animal," I thought.

This was being brutally honest with myself and taking the high road as a responsible person.

I was down to my last edible resources in my apartment and opened a box of Honey Nut Cheerios, which I was now sharing with the dog.

In the days that followed, there were many serious conversations regarding the dog's status.

I talked to my girlfriend and shared my fears.

"If you don't adopt him, I will," she replied.

That was all the motivation I needed.

Our family was just beginning, and this helpless pup would be part of it right from the start.

[music] That's the beginning of when you met Dozer.

Yes, sir.

The book goes on to tell your life .. and how it helped you and changed your life.

Yes, sir.

What's your ultimate goal with this book?

Aside from paying homage to Dozer and for being the wonderful animal that he was, that he helped me through some very dark and troubling times, and I'm still here because of him, I want to try and help veterans, or maybe anybody who's suffered some kind of a traumatic event, maybe give them an outlet.

A lot of times, people don't know where to turn with these combat stress-related issues or even traumatic experiences.

They don't know where to turn.

Sometimes, a non-judging dog may be the answer.

The rate of veteran suicide is outstanding.

Yes, there's 22 veterans that are committing suicide a day.

Openly, I'm scared to admit this, but I don't know how close I could have been to that situation had that continued, because it was getting to a point where I was avoiding human contact.

I hate to admit it because that was one of my lowest times.

It scares me to think about that.

If people want to get the book Rescued, where should they go?

You can get it anywhere, pretty much online at eBay, Amazon, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target.

It's pretty much everywhere.

We even do have some hard footprint places that are selling them.

The Good Neighbor bookstore in Western New York has got them.

There's a place in New Hampshire, too.

I'm not familiar with any of them.

Coast to coast, it sounds like.

Yes, it's crazy.

What advice would you give to someone who's sitting at home going, "I had a dark time.

I should write a book about what helped me."

How did you go from, "I should write a book," to actually getting it done?

My determination and drive to pay homage again to Dozer was what really got it done.

Again, as far as advice to anybody, if you've got a dream, chase it.

It's not going to chase you.

You know that bottom line.

Where can people keep in contact with you if they want to follow you?

Are you working on other books?

You do speaking events, and you're quite involved in the community.

The Toys for Tots, are you still involved because you we.. that up for the Jackson area?

Yes, still am.

I lead the Gibson County platoon.

The Gibson County platoon is in Milan, Walmart area.

We do collect toys around late November, early December, for Toys for Tots.

Yes, and I love doing that.

It's a labor of love, but I love doing that because everything stays here locally.

Are there any more books in the series?

Yes, sir.

I wouldn't say, per se, in the series.

I don't really have a series started.

That's the first and only one that I've written so far.

My next venture I'm wanting to write stories about local veterans and the contributions that they made that maybe nobody knows about.

Particularly, I have two Vietnam vets that one I've already interviewed.

I'm working on the second one there.

The next book, I'm hoping to call Voices of Valor.

I'm thinking that probably would be a pretty fitting book.

Again, the reason why I'm writing that is because I just want people to understand what the cost of freedom is.

We could sit here and talk about it, but the reality is, until somebody really puts the rubber on the road, you're not going to fully understand it.

Sadly, Andy, we have run out of time on this episode, but please stay in touch with us as your new books come out or things, and we'd love to keep our viewers updated.

Absolutely.

Thank you for coming on .. and sharing your story and the story of Rescued.

Thank you so much for having me.

I certainly appreciate it.

You bet.

As a little thank you gift, we.. a All About Home Channel 11 writing kit, a briefcase, latte mug, pen, and pad to keep your notes for your future writings.

Thank you very much.

Before you leave, would you do us a favor and sign your book for us?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

[music] Thank you, PBS.

Semper Fi.

Andy L. Vistrand, Corporal USMC.

[music] For comments about today's show or to suggest a Tennessee author for a future program, email us at tennesseewrites@westnpbs.org.

Tennessee Writes, on air and streaming now.

[music] The program you've been watching was made possible through the generous financial support of West Tennessee PBS viewers like you.

Please visit westnpbs.org and make a donation today so that we can continue to make local programs like this possible.

Thank you.

[music]