Speaker 1: Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is US Army veterans Scotty Hasting. You might
Speaker 1: know him better as country music singer Scottie Hasting. Hasting
Speaker 1: was seriously wounded in Afghanistan in twenty eleven when he
Speaker 1: was shot ten times while on patrol with the four
Speaker 1: to four Cavalry. Today, we'll learn his story of service,
Speaker 1: his attempts to return to active duty, and how he
Speaker 1: landed a recording contract just three years after learning to
Speaker 1: play the guitar. Scotty Hasting was born and raised in
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati, Ohio, Northern Kentucky area, and while he had
Speaker 1: some veterans in the family, he grew to admire the
Speaker 1: military through television and the movies, and when his time
Speaker 1: came to enlist in twenty ten, he knew why he
Speaker 1: wanted to serve and why he wanted to be in
Speaker 1: the Army.
Speaker 2: You know, I always felt like I needed to be
Speaker 2: a part of something that meant something, that I wanted
Speaker 2: to do, something that was bigger than myself, and the
Speaker 2: Army was just growing up. I watched all the movies
Speaker 2: and all the TV shows, and it was always the army,
Speaker 2: the people who went and fought like those, to me
Speaker 2: were what soldiers were and what my idea of a
Speaker 2: soldier was, and when it came time for me to enlist,
Speaker 2: that was the only option for me.
Speaker 1: Hastings says training was pretty easy and he always wanted
Speaker 1: to be in the infantry because he wanted to be
Speaker 1: in the fight. Just three months after basic training, he
Speaker 1: was off to Afghanistan as part of the four to
Speaker 1: four Cavalry. He was struck by the physical beauty of
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and the generosity of its people. He was also
Speaker 1: surprised by a new role, being the point man on
Speaker 1: patrol on the search for the enemy's improvised explosive devices.
Speaker 2: I remember when they told me that that was gonna
Speaker 2: be my job, and I remember how nervous I was.
Speaker 2: So I was a valid operator all is basically a
Speaker 2: metal detector, and it was my job to walk in
Speaker 2: front of everybody and basically scan the ground and make
Speaker 2: sure no one stepped on any ideas, you know. I
Speaker 2: remember the first time they told me that, and how
Speaker 2: nervous I was that that was going to be my
Speaker 2: job and that I literally had everyone's life in my hand.
Speaker 2: And on patrols, and then I started training with it,
Speaker 2: and then I got really proficient with it and very
Speaker 2: good with it and knowing the different sounds it makes
Speaker 2: compared to the different metals that are in the ground
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. And then it got basically to
Speaker 2: the point of where I don't know if I could
Speaker 2: have done anything else. Also, when when I got hit,
Speaker 2: That's why, you know, losing my friends made it so
Speaker 2: much harder because they took over my job after I
Speaker 2: got shot.
Speaker 1: Hasting found devices of all kinds, but he remembers one
Speaker 1: most vividly.
Speaker 2: The craziest one that we ever saw was normally they
Speaker 2: use wood and they put wires on each side of
Speaker 2: the woods, so when you stuff on it, they connect
Speaker 2: and then it goes boom. The craziest one we ever
Speaker 2: saw was a bottle, just like a plastic bottle, and
Speaker 2: it was two wires in the bottle and you step
Speaker 2: on the bottle, it compresses. And that one barely read
Speaker 2: on the valin and it was that that was crazy.
Speaker 2: That was when we realized that they're you know, they're
Speaker 2: smart and they're adapting.
Speaker 1: Hasting has no trouble remembering his first time in combat,
Speaker 1: not only the shooting, but for how real the threat
Speaker 1: was to American lives.
Speaker 2: The first one where we took it casually was that
Speaker 2: that was the one that really Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 2: first one is always artists. We were on patrol with
Speaker 2: an engineer group. They had these little machines that would
Speaker 2: go in front of us to find I e. D.
Speaker 2: S and stuff in the ground and uh and one
Speaker 2: of them got shot in the back of the head
Speaker 2: back here. And I still remember that that one very clearly.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was the first time that we took
Speaker 2: any type of casualty or anything. And yeah, that one
Speaker 2: sticks with you. All of them really do. But the
Speaker 2: first is always the hardest.
Speaker 1: On April twenty first, twenty eleven, life changed drastically for
Speaker 1: Scottie Hasting while he and his men were on patrol.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't an ied. It was a gunman they
Speaker 1: had been watching carefully.
Speaker 2: It was just like any other day of going on patrol.
Speaker 2: You know. Our mission was to go talk to a
Speaker 2: suspected by maker and it was literally just like any
Speaker 2: other day. You know. You you wake up, you eat,
Speaker 2: you go and start getting getting ready, getting pumped up
Speaker 2: and getting ready to go out out of the wire,
Speaker 2: and so then we started walking and you know, a
Speaker 2: little bit into probably about an hour and a half
Speaker 2: into our walk, it was, we came up on a guy,
Speaker 2: the guy that shot me. What happened was we crossed
Speaker 2: this water area and then we kind of stopped in
Speaker 2: place and reassessed where we were and where we were
Speaker 2: going to go. And the whole time that we were
Speaker 2: sitting there, there was this older guy that was walking
Speaker 2: around and kind of just watching us, which is normal
Speaker 2: normally if we're around their people, they're curious, you know,
Speaker 2: especially kids. The kids over there were always curious. They
Speaker 2: wanted to come see what we were doing. But the
Speaker 2: older gentleman, you know, he came out, he looked at us.
Speaker 2: It was it was very normal. It became less normal
Speaker 2: because he kept coming back and watching and then going away.
Speaker 2: And then he would come back and watch, and then
Speaker 2: he'd go away, and it became very obvious that he
Speaker 2: was trying to figure out what we were doing and
Speaker 2: where we were going. And we finally figured out where
Speaker 2: we were going, we put a plan together and we
Speaker 2: started walking again. So we walked right on the right
Speaker 2: side of his hut, and then we jumped over the
Speaker 2: wall that was right next to it. Over there. You
Speaker 2: jump over grape rose, you jump over walls. That's just
Speaker 2: what you have to do, which was tough, but yeah,
Speaker 2: so we jumped over the wall. We got into this
Speaker 2: they call it a road. I would call it a sidewalk.
Speaker 2: It was not very wide, which is crazy because they
Speaker 2: tried like vans and stuff down these little sidewalks. It's insane.
Speaker 2: I don't know if the Afghan people are the greatest
Speaker 2: drivers I've ever seen or the craziest drivers I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so we were in this little sidewalk roadway
Speaker 2: and then we walked right in front of the older
Speaker 2: gentleman's house and he was nowhere to be found. And
Speaker 2: I was immediately like red flags are just popping up
Speaker 2: in my head. I'm like, this dude was so interested
Speaker 2: in what we were doing, and now he's just gone.
Speaker 2: And I remember looking back and I said, hey, the
Speaker 2: old guy that was here is gone, like be ready,
Speaker 2: something's about to happen. And literally thirty seconds later I
Speaker 2: saw the guy that was standing there behind the wall,
Speaker 2: probably twelve feet from me, and he just looked like
Speaker 2: every they're civilian there just trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: we were doing. So I went back to doing my
Speaker 2: valin thing, and I saw him move real quick and
Speaker 2: out of the corner of my eye, and that's kind
Speaker 2: of what caught my attention, and I kind of squared
Speaker 2: up to him. And when I squared up to him,
Speaker 2: he had already pulled a rifle from behind his back
Speaker 2: and just started spraying, and he was just he was
Speaker 2: too close to miss. Honestly, he ended up hit me
Speaker 2: ten times. So basically started here in my thigh with
Speaker 2: one shot and then formed my hip and then just
Speaker 2: kind of ran up me this way, and then I
Speaker 2: ended up getting five in the shoulder. There were two
Speaker 2: that went through my rifle into my plates. I had
Speaker 2: some bruises on my chest, but I don't count.
Speaker 1: Those hastings as by holding the valid metal detector. His
Speaker 1: life was probably saved by his rifle hanging across his chest.
Speaker 1: He says his first thoughts were of the intense pain.
Speaker 2: I remember not being able to do anything. I remember
Speaker 2: just kind of screaming, letting out a scream. I remember
Speaker 2: the pain. You know, whoever said that adrenaline kicks in
Speaker 2: is a liar, because I remember every bit of it,
Speaker 2: and you know, I remember. I remember getting shot. I
Speaker 2: remember the pain, and I remember waking up on the ground.
Speaker 2: I noticed that he was messing with his rifle. His
Speaker 2: rifle had jammed, and that's why he had stopped shooting.
Speaker 2: And that was when I basically took my rifle and
Speaker 2: aimed it at him. And he saw that and he
Speaker 2: took off running. He dropped his rifle, took off running.
Speaker 2: And thank god, he didn't notice that he had hit
Speaker 2: my weapon because I pulled the trigger and nothing happened.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, well, okay, this isn't gonna work.
Speaker 2: And I had no way to defend myself in any way,
Speaker 2: shape or for him. Thankfully he didn't notice that. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it was I was awake the whole time.
Speaker 2: Once I hit the ground, I immediately I was awake
Speaker 2: the whole time.
Speaker 1: But even more haunting now than the pain, for Scottie
Speaker 1: Hasting was the smell.
Speaker 2: It wasn't so much the pain. The thing that really
Speaker 2: sticks with me is this smell. The smell of your
Speaker 2: own flesh burning is something I wouldn't wish on my
Speaker 2: worst enemy. It is It sticks with you and it
Speaker 2: doesn't go away. And I remember laying there and in
Speaker 2: so much pain and trying to figure out how to
Speaker 2: get back to my guys, because me getting shot was
Speaker 2: the initiation of a whole other ambush that they had
Speaker 2: tried to do, and so they were getting shot at.
Speaker 2: They were in the middle of an ambush as I
Speaker 2: was laying there, and you know, the pain hurt. But
Speaker 2: the scariest part of it was that I didn't know
Speaker 2: where that guy went, and I was just expecting him
Speaker 2: to just kind of peek his head around the corner
Speaker 2: and just finish the job, you know, I mean, he
Speaker 2: knew that I wasn't dead. I mean he looked at me.
Speaker 2: I looked at him like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, despite the ongoing fighting, Hasting remembers his friends taking
Speaker 1: care of him and getting him evacuated after he was hit.
Speaker 2: You know, my guy saved my life had You know,
Speaker 2: when you're go through basic training or you go through
Speaker 2: combat life Saver course, you're you're taught that you know,
Speaker 2: going to shock is going to be the number one
Speaker 2: killer in a combat injury, Like if you if your casually,
Speaker 2: try to stay calm as possible. And so I did,
Speaker 2: and my guys got to me, and thankfully they understood
Speaker 2: the assignment because I started joking with them, and they
Speaker 2: started joking with me, and that was my way of
Speaker 2: trying to stay calm, and it worked apparently, and you know,
Speaker 2: and it was it was it felt like an eternity
Speaker 2: and for waiting for that, waiting for the helicopter to
Speaker 2: get there. But I remember they were carrying me on
Speaker 2: a on a stretcher, but it wasn't one that had
Speaker 2: like the bars on the side. It was one of
Speaker 2: the ones that like fold up. And I remember they
Speaker 2: we had to go back over that water that we
Speaker 2: had initially climbed through, and I remember them going through
Speaker 2: that water and I remember me almost falling out of
Speaker 2: and I will never let them live that down. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: They almost dropped me once. And it's so funny. They're
Speaker 2: I make I say it all the time to them
Speaker 2: and they're like, man, look at you, you're huge. But
Speaker 2: they're so funny.
Speaker 1: That's Scottie hasting He's a US Army veteran of the
Speaker 1: war in Afghanistan and was severely wounded there in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: Still to come, Hastings survives another scare and begins the
Speaker 1: long road to recovery. I'm Greg Corumbas and this is Veterans.
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Speaker 4: Rick Foley, seventy five year old Vietnam vet from West Haven, Connecticut,
Speaker 4: served as a marine engineer in Vietnam. Upon returning home,
Speaker 4: he initially believed he had adjusted well, being busy with work. However,
Speaker 4: he later realized he had retreated into his own world
Speaker 4: due to unresolved trauma. Recognizing the need for connection, fully
Speaker 4: became active in the West Haven Vietnam Veterans Group and
Speaker 4: the West Haven Veterans Museum, spaces where veterans could share
Speaker 4: experiences and support one another. Now, he actively assists younger
Speaker 4: veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with open dialogue and
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Speaker 1: This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumba's. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is Scotty Hasting. He's a US Army veteran
Speaker 1: who was seriously wounded in Afghanistan. He's now a rising
Speaker 1: star in country music. A moment ago, we learned how
Speaker 1: Scotty was shot ten times in Afghanistan and about the
Speaker 1: immediate efforts to save his life. He now picks up
Speaker 1: the story with the treatment he got in Kandahar after
Speaker 1: being evacuated from.
Speaker 2: Initially, I went to the Candorheart Airfield Hospital and that
Speaker 2: was the initial emergency trauma, just trying to get me
Speaker 2: to where I'm able to at least make it through
Speaker 2: the night. And that was where they, you know, they
Speaker 2: continued to try to clog holes and fill holes with
Speaker 2: galls and stuff like that, and uh, and then initially
Speaker 2: they immediately started putting me on blood. They started getting blood,
Speaker 2: you know, circulating through me again, and yeah, my eyesac
Speaker 2: started coming back. I remember laying there and saying that
Speaker 2: I couldn't see, and then they started pumping me full
Speaker 2: of blood and and started giving me other stuff, and
Speaker 2: I remember starting to see lights in the in the
Speaker 2: hospital roomb and I was like, I'm starting to see,
Speaker 2: like I can start, I can see again, I can
Speaker 2: see again. And I remember some lady bending down and saying, hey,
Speaker 2: it's okay for you to go to sleep, like we
Speaker 2: got you, like you can you can give up now,
Speaker 2: we got you, like, don't worry, it be fine, And
Speaker 2: so I did. I immediately passed out and I woke
Speaker 2: up a couple days later. And the craziest thing about that, though,
Speaker 2: is a couple of years later I was talking to
Speaker 2: a guy who was in that room and there wasn't
Speaker 2: a woman in that room that day. So it gives
Speaker 2: me chills every time I think about it.
Speaker 1: But just when they thought Hasting was stable enough to
Speaker 1: be transported to Germany, another major problem developed. Hasting walks
Speaker 1: us all the way from Afghanistan to Germany to Walter Reed.
Speaker 2: They got me able to where I was able to travel,
Speaker 2: so we jumped on a plane somewhere between Kandahar and
Speaker 2: launched in Germany. They had lost pulse in my arm,
Speaker 2: and they thought that they were going to have to
Speaker 2: take my arm. They thought they were gonna have to
Speaker 2: cut it off and take it. Luckily, modern medicine being
Speaker 2: as incredible as it is. They someone had the amazing
Speaker 2: idea that you could actually just take a vein out
Speaker 2: of my leg and replace the artery with it. Wish
Speaker 2: is insane because I don't know what health class they
Speaker 2: went to, but the anatomy class that I went to,
Speaker 2: I was told that veins and arteries are completely different,
Speaker 2: but apparently a vein will grow into what it needs
Speaker 2: to be to help continue the process of blood flow.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you know, that's incredible. So whoever made that decision,
Speaker 2: thank you. I still had my arm. I'm so thankful
Speaker 2: for that. And yeah, so that was at Bogram. They
Speaker 2: had to make a stop in Bogram, and I remember
Speaker 2: that was the first time I got to call my
Speaker 2: family up until that point, my mom, my wife at
Speaker 2: the time, my dad, my brother. They were told that
Speaker 2: I was shot a bunch of times and that they
Speaker 2: weren't sure how I was or if I would make
Speaker 2: it through the night. And that was a couple of
Speaker 2: days that they had to live with that information, and
Speaker 2: I can only imagine how hard that would have been
Speaker 2: to hear that, not know, not have any idea. So
Speaker 2: I remember I got to Bogram and just got this done.
Speaker 2: They just you know, replaced my vein and my artery
Speaker 2: and and I remember some a guy came in. He's like, hey,
Speaker 2: do you have any like have you have you been
Speaker 2: able to call any family yet or anything. I was like, no,
Speaker 2: like I would love to. Is there a way I
Speaker 2: can do that? And they're like, yeah, yeah, let's let's
Speaker 2: make a phone call. Like you can make a phone
Speaker 2: call right now. And I called my mom my first,
Speaker 2: because I was like, man, the one person is gonna
Speaker 2: be really freaked out as my mom, so I should
Speaker 2: call her. And uh, I called my mom and you know,
Speaker 2: of course she started crying on the phone and stuff,
Speaker 2: and I was just glad that I was alive. And yeah,
Speaker 2: that was when I was like, I'm like, you know
Speaker 2: she was. She was crying hysterically, and I was like, listen,
Speaker 2: like there's people way worse off than I am, Like
Speaker 2: it's okay, Like I'm going to be fine. Like would
Speaker 2: I think they're going to try to figure out how
Speaker 2: to get you guys to Walter Reed because at the
Speaker 2: time I was planning on going to Walter Reed. So
Speaker 2: when from Bogram to Lonstel and Lonsteel was it was honestly,
Speaker 2: all of this time was just kind of like a blur,
Speaker 2: you know, it was me laying in a hospital bed
Speaker 2: on a bunch of medicine and just trying to get
Speaker 2: through the day. And so it went to Lonstool and
Speaker 2: then that's when they asked me, you know, like they
Speaker 2: were like, hey, do you want you can go to Bamsea,
Speaker 2: which is in San Antonio, or you can go to
Speaker 2: Walter Reed. Like where do you want to go? And
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I don't know where Bamsea is,
Speaker 2: but I've heard of Walter Reed from like movies and stuff,
Speaker 2: so I'll go there. You know, Walter Reid was was
Speaker 2: an incredible place. The people at Walter Reed are unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I mean they they saved my life.
Speaker 1: He then explained what his recovery looked like at Walter
Speaker 1: Reed and how difficult it was for his family to
Speaker 1: see him there, at least at first.
Speaker 2: Well, I was at Walter Reid. I was impatient for
Speaker 2: a month, and that was every other day. I was
Speaker 2: getting put under and going to sleep, and they were
Speaker 2: cleaning my wounds and I was hooked up to a
Speaker 2: bunch of different wound vacs, but won four different wound vacs.
Speaker 2: Basically they were just there to keep everything clean and sterile.
Speaker 2: And it's insane to think about my family's point of
Speaker 2: view too, you know, Like I had these wound vacks
Speaker 2: hooked up to me. I was I was fine at
Speaker 2: this time, you know, I was. I wasn't gonna die,
Speaker 2: you know, but I was hooked up to a bunch
Speaker 2: of machines. And I remember Corey, my younger brother, was like, man,
Speaker 2: I walked in. I walked into that room and like
Speaker 2: saw all these machines and I was like, these machines
Speaker 2: are keeping him alive, Like how he's gonna be dope.
Speaker 2: And I was like, like, that's not what these machines are.
Speaker 2: They're not to keep me alive. Like it's okay. I
Speaker 2: can only imagine, you know, walking into that room and
Speaker 2: seeing the person you love hooked up to all these
Speaker 2: machines in this hospital room and not knowing what the
Speaker 2: future looks like.
Speaker 1: That's Scottie Hasting, a US Army veteran of Afghanistan. Much
Speaker 1: more on his recovery, his rise in music, and how
Speaker 1: his music is hell helping save veterans lives. In just
Speaker 1: a moment, I'm Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans' Chronicles This
Speaker 1: is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this
Speaker 1: edition is country music singer Scottie Hasting. He is also
Speaker 1: a US Army veteran who was seriously wounded in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: in April of twenty eleven. Hasting has explained to us
Speaker 1: what happened the day he was wounded, how close he
Speaker 1: came to losing his life after supposedly being stabilized, and
Speaker 1: what recovery looked like at Walter reed. But as Hasting improved,
Speaker 1: he had one goal to be back with his guys
Speaker 1: on active duty in a line unit. Some may struggle
Speaker 1: to understand that desire after such a close call with death,
Speaker 1: but Hasting says, once you've served with men and trusted
Speaker 1: them to have your back in life and death situations,
Speaker 1: you have an unbreakable bond with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean the reason you go
Speaker 2: back is for them. You know, your whole job, your
Speaker 2: whole mission, your whole purpose in the Middle military is
Speaker 2: to take care of the people to your left and
Speaker 2: to your right, And and there's there's such a relationship that's
Speaker 2: formed and bonded like that, that bond that becomes a
Speaker 2: thing that to where you I mean, you rely on
Speaker 2: them and they rely on you, and there's there's nothing
Speaker 2: like that, you know. I mean that's I rely on
Speaker 2: them to keep me alive and they rely on me
Speaker 2: to keep them alive. And you can't find that anywhere else.
Speaker 2: And you build a relationship and you build a bond
Speaker 2: unlike anything else, and that makes you do crazy things
Speaker 2: like say, I just got shot ten times, but I
Speaker 2: want to go back. But you build, you form a
Speaker 2: love for these people and a very strong love for
Speaker 2: these people, and you want to be there with them
Speaker 2: to protect them, you know, And that's that's why.
Speaker 1: But wanting that and getting that are two different things.
Speaker 1: Hasting explains everything he tried to do to rejoin his
Speaker 1: line in.
Speaker 2: It and that's when it all started. That's that's when
Speaker 2: I started, you know, trying to be more active and
Speaker 2: work out more. And I started and you know, pushing
Speaker 2: for promotions and just tried to pick up more responsibilities
Speaker 2: around the Warrior Transition battalion and stuff to try to
Speaker 2: to try to build that little bit of yeah, to
Speaker 2: just kind of help the resume a little bit. Normally,
Speaker 2: when you're going for promotion to sergeant, like you are
Speaker 2: given these responsibilities to you know, watch to take care
Speaker 2: of these guys and those guys and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But with the word transition battalion, they didn't have the
Speaker 2: ability for that, so they had to find different ways
Speaker 2: of doing it. A way that we were able to
Speaker 2: do it was that I was in charge of the
Speaker 2: barracks at one point in time, which was really great.
Speaker 2: It gave me the ability to be responsible for something. Luckily,
Speaker 2: I had the points I needed and if I didn't,
Speaker 2: I went to the you know, did the online schooling
Speaker 2: and stuff that I needed to do to get the
Speaker 2: points that I needed in order to get promoted to sergeant.
Speaker 2: Because again still in my eyes, I'm going back to
Speaker 2: aligning it so I'm going to continue my career. And
Speaker 2: so with that also came I had to do a
Speaker 2: bunch of tests. You know, you had to do a
Speaker 2: mental evaluation and emotional evaluation, and then you had to
Speaker 2: do a physical evaluation. You know, the mental and the
Speaker 2: emotional one. You know what they want to hear. So
Speaker 2: that was easy, absolutely. The physical one though, was harder.
Speaker 2: You know, I still have an injury. I still you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not able to move the way that I used
Speaker 2: to and I was still trying to figure all that
Speaker 2: out in the middle of all this and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I failed the physical test four different times and uh.
Speaker 2: And eventually they were like, man, like, we don't think
Speaker 2: that going back to the line uit is something that
Speaker 2: you're going to be able to do, but we have
Speaker 2: this list of all these other jobs that you might
Speaker 2: be able to do in the military. And I looked
Speaker 2: at the list and I took it, you know, back
Speaker 2: to my house and really thought about what I wanted
Speaker 2: to do. If this was something wrong would because you know,
Speaker 2: I joined a fight. That was my idea of a soldier.
Speaker 2: My idea of a soldier was to be there and
Speaker 2: fight and to go after the bad guys instead of
Speaker 2: them coming here. And so all of these were non
Speaker 2: deployable jobs, and they were all jobs that basically was
Speaker 2: kind of sitting behind a desk. And I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't want to do that, but this
Speaker 2: is that's not what I signed up for. I signed
Speaker 2: up to fight, and if I can't fight, then what's
Speaker 2: what's the point. And that was really kind of when
Speaker 2: you know, all of the depression and stuff really hit.
Speaker 2: You know, that that was when I was realizing that
Speaker 2: this this thing that I grew to love, you know,
Speaker 2: that this this job, this this career that I wanted,
Speaker 2: was about to be gone and I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: be able to do it anymore. And that's really when
Speaker 2: when the depression hit the hardest. And uh but yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I was given that list and I was like, like, I,
Speaker 2: this isn't I can't do these, this isn't what I
Speaker 2: signed up for. And that's when I made the decision
Speaker 2: to get into the med board process and and then
Speaker 2: get medically retired.
Speaker 1: After being medically retired, Hasting says he needed something else
Speaker 1: to focus on in order to keep post traumatic stress
Speaker 1: from overwhelming him, and for a few years at least,
Speaker 1: he found that in archery. Until that door was suddenly closed.
Speaker 2: I found therapy in archery. I found kind of an
Speaker 2: escape in archery. You know, for seven seconds before that
Speaker 2: era released, nothing in the world matter to PTSC, the
Speaker 2: depression of the anxiety. It all disappeared. So I lived
Speaker 2: for seven seconds at a time, that was my life.
Speaker 2: With the Paralympic program, all of us on the Paralympic program,
Speaker 2: about ninety five percent of us on the Paralympic program
Speaker 2: were veterans, and so I had the guys back. I
Speaker 2: was able to be with guys who understood it was
Speaker 2: exactly what I needed when I needed it, and it
Speaker 2: was incredibly therapeutic. And then COVID hit in the world
Speaker 2: shut down, which means that my therapy, my escape was gone,
Speaker 2: and I needed something when it gets quiet as when
Speaker 2: the demon's knock loudest, and COVID was very quiet, and
Speaker 2: I needed something to get out of my head.
Speaker 1: During COVID, Hasting knew that being alone with his thoughts
Speaker 1: would become a problem, so he sought another outlet. He
Speaker 1: had owned a guitar for years but never learned how
Speaker 1: to play it, so in twenty twenty, he hopped on
Speaker 1: YouTube and taught himself how to play four chords that
Speaker 1: could be used to play thousands of different songs. Then
Speaker 1: he learned how to write songs, and by the time
Speaker 1: Nashville was starting to slowly reopen from COVID, Hasting decided
Speaker 1: he was ready to play and sing in front of others,
Speaker 1: with his first performance coming in front of just four
Speaker 1: other people who were also there for an open mic night.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that performance was like it was
Speaker 2: probably awful, but for me it was. For me, it
Speaker 2: was everything that escape in that sense of purpose, in
Speaker 2: that therapy that I had found in everything else before
Speaker 2: was there, but it was magnified a hundred times in
Speaker 2: that moment. The stage became a sanctuary for me, and
Speaker 2: I knew that that's what I needed to do forever.
Speaker 2: Like I wanted to get on every stage i could,
Speaker 2: because the therapy that I got from it was the
Speaker 2: most amazing feeling I've ever felt. So I went to
Speaker 2: every open mic night I could find until the world
Speaker 2: started opening up again, and then through friends that these
Speaker 2: open mic nights, I started hearing that, you know, down
Speaker 2: on Broadway in Nashville, you can play three to four
Speaker 2: hours at a time a day. And I was like, well,
Speaker 2: you telling me for three to four hours a day,
Speaker 2: I can all the PTSD, the depression, of the anxiety,
Speaker 2: all that can be gone. That's what I want to do.
Speaker 2: I want to do that. I don't care what it takes,
Speaker 2: That's what I want to do. So I went down
Speaker 2: on Broadway and I walked up and down Broadway for
Speaker 2: a month and just bugged their crap out of people
Speaker 2: until they let me on stage so much so that
Speaker 2: eventually I was playing six days a week and three
Speaker 2: to four hours at a time, and I lived for it,
Speaker 2: you know, and my vocal cords hated me, absolutely hated me.
Speaker 2: But the therapy that I got from those three to four
Speaker 2: hours were priceless and unlike anything I have ever imagined.
Speaker 2: And then it just slowly blossomed and has now become
Speaker 2: a career.
Speaker 1: But didn't Hastings say he permanently injured his hand when
Speaker 1: he was wounded, So how does he play the guitar?
Speaker 2: You know? I got to say, Luckily, I learned. I
Speaker 2: learned how to play after my injury, because if I
Speaker 2: knew how to play before my injury, I probably would
Speaker 2: have given up. It was hard, yeah, I mean, you
Speaker 2: got to think about it. I got no feeling on
Speaker 2: my hand whatsoever. I have this much movement in my hand,
Speaker 2: and that's all I have, So these three fingers just
Speaker 2: kind of sit there. So it was painful, and it
Speaker 2: was and it was hard, and it was, you know,
Speaker 2: but the the therapy outweighed the pain, and it outweighed
Speaker 2: how how hard it was to figure it out and
Speaker 2: how hard it was to get this hand. And you know,
Speaker 2: because I have no feeling from basically here down, so
Speaker 2: the movement and everything that I have to make in
Speaker 2: order to strum, like all of that, like trying to
Speaker 2: find rhythm in a hand that you can't feel very
Speaker 2: hard and you know so not had I not known
Speaker 2: how to play. If I knew how to play, I
Speaker 2: probably would have given up. So thank god I didn't
Speaker 2: know how to play already.
Speaker 1: Hasting didn't just play and sing. He did both really well.
Speaker 1: In fact, just three years after picking up his guitar,
Speaker 1: Hasting signed his first record deal.
Speaker 2: It's very, very quick. Everything has been so incredibly quick,
Speaker 2: and I would never take for granted where I'm at.
Speaker 2: There are people on Broadway and there are people out
Speaker 2: there who have dreamed of being where I am their
Speaker 2: whole life and have worked on it and worked on
Speaker 2: it for decades. And I've been doing this for five years.
Speaker 4: And I.
Speaker 2: Don't know how it has moved as fast as it has.
Speaker 2: And it'll never go unnoticed by me that I am
Speaker 2: in a place that so many people would dream to be.
Speaker 1: In addition to the therapy he says comes from music,
Speaker 1: Hasting says it's also helped him to stay connected with
Speaker 1: his army brothers, and he even inc it's them and
Speaker 1: some of his songs.
Speaker 2: They love it. It's funny. I'll try to put him
Speaker 2: in songs every once in a while. One of my
Speaker 2: really dear friends, John Connor is and one of my
Speaker 2: songs called the Stories that They Tell, his name is
Speaker 2: in the song, and it's funny. That's become kind of
Speaker 2: like his thing now. You know, he's like, man, anytime
Speaker 2: my kids start thinking that they're so much cooler than me,
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, but are you in a song? You know?
Speaker 2: It's so funny, and you know, they try to come
Speaker 2: out and support as much as possible. You know. I
Speaker 2: remember my grand Ole Opry debut I had. I had
Speaker 2: a couple of them in the crowd with me that day,
Speaker 2: and it was it was so much fun, and it
Speaker 2: was so much fun, and it's so cool to be
Speaker 2: able to see them, and you know, hopefully, you know,
Speaker 2: what I'm doing makes them proud.
Speaker 1: Given his own battles with PTSD, hasting dedicates his music
Speaker 1: in part to helping veterans and encouraging them to, as
Speaker 1: he states it, put down the gun and move away
Speaker 1: from suicidal thoughts and it's working. Hastings shared one very
Speaker 1: powerful story from a com concert just before the super
Speaker 1: Bowl in early twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: It was kind of the moment when I realized that
Speaker 2: we were doing something that meant something. I was at
Speaker 2: a show in Phoenix before the super Bowl. It was
Speaker 2: the first time I ever got to open up for
Speaker 2: an artist, and I got to open for Dave Girl,
Speaker 2: which is crazy. Also, Dave Girl is one of the
Speaker 2: most incredible people I've ever met in my entire life.
Speaker 2: We did an acoustic show and I opened for him,
Speaker 2: and I played a song that I had written two
Speaker 2: days before that. There's a song called how Do You Choose?
Speaker 2: And it's a song about my survivor's guilt about why
Speaker 2: I'm here and my best friend isn't. And the event
Speaker 2: that we played was four veterans, and it was there
Speaker 2: was two hundred, maybe three hundred veterans in this room,
Speaker 2: and I played how do You Choose, an incredibly personal
Speaker 2: song to myself and something that I know that I
Speaker 2: struggle with all the time about the Survivor's guild and
Speaker 2: you know, why am I here? And I played the
Speaker 2: song and it was the first time that I'd ever
Speaker 2: played a song. And then it was just kind of
Speaker 2: quiet afterwards, and I was like, oh my god, they
Speaker 2: hated the song, like this song is my heart and soul,
Speaker 2: and they hated it. And then I kind of opened
Speaker 2: my eyes and realized that everyone was kind of consoling
Speaker 2: each other. And that was when I realized that there
Speaker 2: was something to that song and that we needed to
Speaker 2: record it and that it needed to be out there.
Speaker 2: Then fast forward another day and I get a message
Speaker 2: from one of the guys who co wrote the song
Speaker 2: with me named Jesse Wayne Taylor, and he had a
Speaker 2: buddy who was in the military and he was in
Speaker 2: he was in Phoenix, and the message went on to
Speaker 2: say that he was in Phoenix and he was at
Speaker 2: the show and the reason why he was messaging was
Speaker 2: because Jesse Wayne Taylor helped me write it and I
Speaker 2: said Jesse's name before I sang it, and he basically
Speaker 2: the message was like, man, I'm going to be one
Speaker 2: hundred percent honest with you, like I was going to
Speaker 2: end it. I was going to end everything, and I
Speaker 2: was going to be done with this like I was
Speaker 2: over it. He said. You know, I figured before I did,
Speaker 2: I've always wanted to see Dave Girl play and I
Speaker 2: figured if tickets are free for veterans. I'll go watch
Speaker 2: Dave Girl play and then I'll end it when I
Speaker 2: get home. And they said, but I wasn't ready for
Speaker 2: Scotty Like he played this song called how Do You Choose?
Speaker 2: And it changed everything and He's like, man, I realized
Speaker 2: that I'm not alone in this, Like I realized that
Speaker 2: this is something that we all deal with. And Scotty
Speaker 2: made me want to continue moving forward and man, like,
Speaker 2: that's that's it. That's the whole reason I want to
Speaker 2: do this. And that was the moment that made me
Speaker 2: realize that that I could actually do some good. And
Speaker 2: that was the moment that made me realize that we
Speaker 2: have to do more and I have to be out
Speaker 2: there and I have to let these veterans see me,
Speaker 2: and then I have to let them see my heart
Speaker 2: and my soul and I have to let them see
Speaker 2: me be vulnerable and let them see me cry on
Speaker 2: camera and let them understand that it's okay. That was
Speaker 2: the moment that made me realize that we're doing something
Speaker 2: that means something. And uh, and that was you know,
Speaker 2: that was it, man, That was what lit the fire.
Speaker 2: That was what lit the fire.
Speaker 1: And Hasting has a simple message for any struggling veterans
Speaker 1: and their families.
Speaker 2: You know, my encouragement is just to keep moving forward,
Speaker 2: you know that, and uh that and find something you
Speaker 2: love to do and do it all the time. You know.
Speaker 2: That's I've been lucky enough to be able to to
Speaker 2: find something that I love, and I've been able to
Speaker 2: reap the therapy and the benefits from it. And there's
Speaker 2: so much therapy and finding something you love to do.
Speaker 2: And I hope that with my music, I hope that,
Speaker 2: you know, with my story, I hope that someone hears
Speaker 2: it and it helps them in some way, shape or form,
Speaker 2: whatever that looks like, whether it be you know, just
Speaker 2: them understanding that they're not alone in feeling the feelings
Speaker 2: that they're feeling, or that you know, PTSD depression and
Speaker 2: anxiety is something that we all suffer from. I mean,
Speaker 2: even me, I still have bad days, you know, and
Speaker 2: I get to do incredible things, things that I never
Speaker 2: thought possible, you know, And I hope that it's just
Speaker 2: it gives them some type of hope. You know, that
Speaker 2: you don't have to be defined by the bad, but
Speaker 2: you can be defined with what you do with them.
Speaker 1: Scottie Hasting is a US Army veteran of the war
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, and he was seriously wounded there in April
Speaker 1: of twenty eleven. He is now a rising star and
Speaker 1: country music and continues to focus on helping veterans. I'm
Speaker 1: Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: This is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
Speaker 1: a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information,
Speaker 1: please visit American Veterans Center, or you can also follow
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