Searching for a Veteran Podcast? You Can Find it on Wreaths Across America Radio

Internet-based radio is a burgeoning medium, with expected growth of over 18% from 2022 to 2030 and a market value likely to reach more than $9 billion by 2030. Online radio stations broadcast the same content available on traditional radio stations, whether its news, sports, music or talk—as well as Veteran-themed shows.

Enter Wreaths Across America Radio (WAA Radio), a 24/7 internet radio station that airs podcasts and radio shows aimed at educating and entertaining Veterans. In addition to its national internet availability, WAA Radio is available on the apps iHeartRadio, Audacy and TuneIn, as well as LIVE365, an internet radio network. A country music thread runs through the core of WAA Radio’s stream, with the roots firmly planted in patriotism.

Wreaths Across America Radio broadcasts a live show every weekday from 6 to 10 a.m. EST hosted by Michael Hale, a veteran broadcaster whose grandfather, father and many of his uncles and brothers served in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. WAA Radio airs a variety of special programs that also support the mission of its Maine-based parent organization, Wreaths Across America, to remember fallen Veterans, honor those who have served and teach future generations the value of freedom.

Those programs include:

• Trucking Tributes and Military Musicians Showcase (both hosted by WAA Radio’s Susan Patten)
• Mission Matters (hosted by Wreaths Across America Executive Director Karen Worcester)
• Encounters With God
• Meet the Young Marines
• Meet The Civil Air Patrol
• Daughters of The American Revolution
• Meet The Goldstar Mothers
• Meet The Gold Star Wives
• A Salute to Excellence (highlighting law enforcement involved in the mission)

Plus, WAA Radio’s programming features a series of independently produced programs and special weekly features on issues of importance to Veterans:

• The Spouse Angle
• The American Hero Show with Travis Mills
• American Warrior Radio
• Cup of Joe Radio
• Got Your Six Podcast
• Veterans Corner Radio with Bill Hodges
• Sword & Pen
• The Veterans Voice Project
• Welcome Home Veterans Radio
• Veterans Voice Network

Jeff Pierce is the director of broadcasting and media partnerships at Wreaths Across America. “Our goal is purely philanthropic,” he said. “We want to broadcast information that is helpful in some way to the Veteran community.”

Pierce knows of no other internet radio stations that aggregate and broadcast Veteran-theme shows. “That is what makes this unique,” he said. “People are coming out of the woodwork with these [Veteran-theme] shows. Then it’s logistics. How do you get this show on the station because not everybody is that technically savvy? Our automation is easy to use. Most of our podcasters just give us the show, and it magically appears in our automation, and we’re ready to go.”

Pierce joined WAA Radio in 2020, 14 years after the founding of Wreaths Across America, a nonprofit organization that honors Veterans who served and sacrificed and have since passed away. Wreaths Across America is linked to more than 3,700 cemeteries in the United States where volunteers lay wreaths at the gravestones of Veterans on National Wreaths Across America Day, which most recently was held on Dec. 17, 2022. Each location has someone who coordinates the wreath laying for that cemetery, with Wreaths Across America providing the resources to fundraise and acquire the wreaths.

It’s so much more than a job

Wreaths Across America Radio was launched in 2015. Since coming on board, Pierce has been instrumental in building out the station by reaching deals with iHeartRadio and other apps to stream the content and by agreeing to carry Veteran radio shows and podcasts in the station’s programming.

The Veteran shows are on a myriad of topics. In The Spouse Angle, two writers from the Military Times, Natalie Gross and Andrea Scott, break down news that affects military spouses and their families. In the Got Your Six Podcast, Tony Nash, an Army major on active duty, talks to Veterans about their transition from the service to successful careers in mainstream America, or “from the battlefield to the boardroom,” as the show puts it.

While overseeing the acquisition and scheduling of these shows, Pierce, who has nearly four decades of experience in the broadcast industry, is loving his work at WAA Radio. In 2019, the year before he joined Wreaths Across America, the Maine Association of Broadcasters (MAB) awarded him its Broadcast Achievement Award and inducted him into the MAB Hall of Fame.

“For me, this is an amalgamation of all the work I have volunteered to do in my own communities over the years through Veterans’ charities and Veterans’ services at the radio stations I’ve managed,” he explained. “Now, I get to focus on the Veterans and military families that have become so much a part of my life for a living! It’s so much more than a job. It’s a passion, and I’m honored to play a part in it.”