Past You Served Radio guest and true Soldiers’ Soldier, GEN Peter Chiarelli retired today. As is said in this video clip he did do more than another other leader to help our soldiers, combat soldier suicides and help remove the stigma of PTS and PTSD from our ranks.

I don’t know who will be stepping in to fill his shoes but I hope they can live up to the task and the high bar GEN Chiarelli has set by his service. I have no doubt that he will continue to serve our country in other way and am excited to see where he will end up. He has done more than his fair share, but he will be missed in the ranks.

Well then you need to check out the new video series that Nick Palmisciano (past guest on You Served Radio) , who is a former Army Ranger and CEO of Ranger Up has come out with. Nick has released the first of four videos giving sage advice and guidance on how to sell yourself as a veteran to a potential employer.

Please join us tonight starting at 8 PM eastern (7 central, 6 mountain, 5 pacific) for another outstanding episode of You Served Radio.

Tonight we will be joined by Mary Corbett, the wife of a National Guardsman and author of the new book National Guard 101: A Handbook for Spouses. We’ll discuss her book and her life as a Guard spouse.

During the second hour, we will have Amanda Ennett join us. Amanda entered the 2011 Bodybuilding.com Military Challenge and won the female division. She is a former Marine, Marine spouse, and mother of three.

We sort of started a tradition a couple of years back to make the last show of the year unique and not like others we normally do. In keeping with that tradition we are going to have a 2011 reflection show tonight. Troy, Wendy and Marcus will all be reminiscing about the year, significant events in our lives, with the military and in our country’s history. We will also be playing some music from our past guests and who knows what else.

We invite you to join us at www.youservedradio.com at 8PM ET tonight and not only listen but also call in to 866-696-9150 and share with us and our listeners some of your memorable moments of 2011.

Cooking with the Troops has a roundup of the event in NYC at the NASDAQ. Please pay attention to the photos because you will see what they do. Chefs and smiling uniformed men and women. It is a great thing!

All charities need donations to keep running and this one is no exception. They need donations, big and small (even $5 will help keep things going!!) to keep sharing food, culinary career help, healthy eating/cooking training, and cooking equipment! Everyone has to eat and doing it either for free at one of the CWtT events or learning how to create a nutritious meal at home for your family is a good thing.

Things are very tight financially across the nation, but if each of you readers donated just a little bit, it would keep the awesome momentum going and fund some upcoming events! By the way, CWtT is also looking for administrative help in several positions. If you are one to volunteer your time and energy and skills to a great organization, please contact Blake at the email on that post and talk to him about helping out!

I was fortunate to be invited out to New York City to attend an amazing event held at NASDAQ OMX. It was to support the charity Cooking with the Troops. NASDAQ and several organizations worked together on Friday to celebrate our troops, past and present.

The day started with a surprise marriage proposal. A young wounded warrior who is on the way to recovery got down on one knee in Times Square and asked his girl to marry him. It was on Fox and Friends if you were watching that morning.

Cooking with the Troops then provided them a beautiful private breakfast in the NASDAQ OMX building. CEO Blake Powers and chef Ellen Adams from A Red Hot Dish cooked for the young couple.

After all of that, the opening bell ceremony was the start to the business day. The American Legion, Sears’ Heroes at Home, and Josh Gracin all got things off to a great start.

Shortly thereafter, the chefs started the cooking demonstrations. You would not believe the yummy smells. In addition to invited guests, there were passes handed out to anyone in uniform down in Times Square. They were welcome to watch the demos, taste samples, and attend the luncheon. It was wonderful to see that CwtT made sure that even strangers on the street were welcomed and brought in to be fed and fêted.

At this point, I sort of cut out because another event was going on. Mark Dolfini with Standing for the Fallen needed a hand collecting donations for Soldiers Angels, so I stood in Times Square with him for close to 4 hours. But I did pop back in a few times to warm up and see how things were going. I could tell lots of military members had accepted and used the passes to get some food and meet the wonderful folks in the dining room. CwtT as a group are so welcoming and they make your stomach growl with the food they dish up! I did have a fortuitous meet-up with our old Youserved friends, Michael Cuomo and K. Lorrel Manning from the film Happy New Year. That totally warmed my heart because I adore those guys!

At the end of the day, we gathered in the studio to do the special closing bell ceremony. CwtT was honored along with a few others and allowed to do the final bell. We were all allowed on stage to shout and cheer the end of an amazing day for everyone involved.

Charities like Cooking with the Troops need donations to keep running and to keep doing events like they do at BAMC, Landstuhl, and Walter Reed. They provide good food, opportunities like sending veterans to a culinary boot camp, and programs like Homefront Support where they teach military and families how to cook nutritious meals (more info about what they do can be found by watching this video). They are currently running a fundraiser that kicked off on Veteran’s Day and will run through Thanksgiving, coincidentally the biggest cooking day of the year for most of America. Please consider helping them keep all of this up and moving forward!!

Jay Platt appeared on You Served Radio on 11 October to discuss his plan to swim across the Mississippi River on Veterans Day 2011. We also talked about his rare cancer disorder that has left him blind in one eye, his service in the Marine Corps, and how he hasn’t let his disease keep him down. This was a highly motivational interview and is a must listen! Catch it after the break.

Vic Freudenberger appeared on You Served Radio back on 27 September. It was a great interview and we are looking forward to having Vic back on the show on 8 November for our Veteran’s Day special. Listen to his previous interview after the break in preparation of his reappearance.

Tonight we have returning guest, Scott Mactavish from the documentary Ride For Lance. Scott was last on the show on March 1st, 2011.

The documentary is about Chief Petty Officer Lance Vaccaro, sort of. Lance was a United States Navy SEAL, who gave his life for his country in 2008. On June 17th, 2010, four riders and a support team, all friends of Lance, launched the The Lance Vaccaro Memorial Ride and rode from Virginia Beach to Alaska and back in his honor. They covered 12,000 miles in 31 days, and met folks from large cities and small towns across North America, including active duty troops, veterans, and the families of deployed and fallen troops who shared their stories of pride and heartbreak.

A film crew accompanied them along the way and captured over 100 hours of footage, and nearly 30,000 high definition photographs.

Be sure to join us tonight for what will be a heart-warming and honorable story on You Served Radio. You can listen live starting at 8PM ET at www.youservedradio.com. In case you miss tonight’s show or would just like to go back and listen to it again, you can hit up that same website anytime after tonight’s show to listen to the archive o this one or any of our past 163 episodes.

First up tonight is Mr. Jay Platt. Jay is the executive director of the “No Matter What!” Foundation. In 1998, he was retired from the Marine Corps, as a Gunnery Sergeant, after a rare disease attacked his eyes, brain, spine, and kidneys.

Refusing to quit, he rebuilt himself and became an adventure athlete; raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities, doing things that will make your head spin.

He was one of fewer than 300 people ever to southbound thru-hike the more than 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail. He is one of only three people in the world to swim from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco, with both his hands and feet bound.

And, on November 11, 2011, he’ll attempt to become the only person in history to swim across the Mississippi river while handcuffed, shackled, and blindfolded!

In the second hour we will have friends and past guests of the show, Lorrell Manning and Michael Cuomo back on to give us the latest developments on their film Happy New Year (www.hnyfilm.com). The film recently picked up several more awards and is gaining popularity across the country.