S3E10 Bob Woodruff

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About Our Guest

Bob Woodruff joined ABC News in 1996 and has covered major stories throughout the country and around the world for the network. He succeeded Peter Jennings as anchor of “ABC World News Tonight” in December 2005. On January 29, 2006, while reporting on U.S. and Iraqi security forces, Woodruff was seriously injured by a roadside bomb that struck his vehicle near Taji, Iraq.

In February 2007, just 13 months after being wounded, Woodruff returned to ABC News with his first on-air report, “To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports.” The hour-long, primetime documentary chronicled his traumatic brain injury (TBI), his painstaking recovery and the plight of thousands of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with similar injuries.

Since returning to the air, Woodruff has reported from around the globe. He has traveled to North Korea eight times, investigating the growing nuclear threats in the hands of Kim Jong Il and his son Kim Jong Un. Since 2015, Woodruff has been ABC’s primary correspondent throughout Asia, reporting on topics ranging from the controversial treatment of Muslims in Myanmar and the Xinjiang province of China to the US presence in the South China Sea. 

In 2001 after the September 11 attacks, he was among the first Western reporters into Pakistan and was one of ABC’s lead foreign correspondents during the war in Afghanistan, reporting from Kabul and Kandahar on the fall of the Taliban. His overseas reporting of the fallout from September 11 was recognized with the Alfred I. duPont Award and the George Foster Peabody Award, the two highest honors in broadcast journalism. He was also recognized with a duPont Award for live coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. For his extensive coverage of traumatic brain injuries, he was honored with another George Foster Peabody Award. Of his 6 Emmy awards, his most recent award resulted from his reports about the brutal treatment of the Rohingya ethnic group by the government of Myanmar.

Before becoming a journalist, Woodruff was an attorney. In 1989, while teaching law in Beijing, he was hired by CBS News to work as a translator during the Tiananmen Square uprising, and a short time later he changed careers. As ABC’s Justice Department correspondent in Washington in the late 1990s, he covered the office of Attorney General Janet Reno, the FBI and ATF.

In February 2007, Woodruff and his wife, Lee, co-wrote a bestselling memoir, In an Instant, chronicling his injuries in Iraq and how their family persevered through a time of intense trauma and uncertainty. The Woodruff family established the Bob Woodruff Foundation (BWF) to raise money to assist injured service members, veterans and their families.

Woodruff has a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and a BA from Colgate University. He and Lee have four children.

Learn more about Bob at bobwoodrufffoundation.org and on Social Media

Episode transcript (generated by AI):

Voice over (male) (00:00):
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Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (00:06):
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(00:28):
The American Hero Show featuring Travis Mills from generals to grandparents, superheroes to superintendents, heroes come in all shapes and sizes. This is the American Hero Show.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (00:51):
Alright, well, we’re back once again and I’ve been fired up for our interviews. I really have. I have two. It’s been a good season. When people tell me I have a face for radio, it hurts my feelings. Well, it’s your haircut, but this gentleman we have actually has a face for TV and the world knows it. Tim. Yeah,

Voice over (male) (01:10):
He,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (01:11):
He’s not only got the face for tv, he’s got the voice too. Well, he went to Colgate College and that’s where he gets his great smile from. Is that what I’m pretty sure. That’s what I use. Colgate Total White. You know what I mean? But ladies and gentlemen, well please welcome to the show, our guest today, Mr. Bob Woodruff. Bob, how are we doing today, sir?

Bob Woodruff (01:31):
I’m good, man. It’s like blue sky out here in New York now after raining and depression for a couple days. It’s freaking. And I’m going to see my little twin girls tonight for dinner, so I’m happy. Oh, that’s

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (01:42):
Awesome. Can’t beat that. Well, thank you so much for being a part of this podcast here, the American Hero Show, and obviously you fit that bill for being an American hero and everything you’ve done in your career so far as to date in your very young career. But I’m excited, Tim and I are just excited to be able to pick your brain and see what’s going on and talk about kind of all the things. So you’re in New York now, where’d you grow up? Just so we get some backstory.

Bob Woodruff (02:07):
I grew up suburbia outside Detroit and then I left there right after I got out of college. Then moved to New York and then I went back Michigan to go to law school, became a lawyer and then I left again and moved to 10 different cities once I married my wife and had kids that my son when he was 11, lived in eight cities.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (02:29):
Oh wow.

Bob Woodruff (02:30):
In two countries. So I mean, I just kept moving, running from something. Maybe there’s maybe some kind of legal violations or something, I don’t know. But I kept running.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (02:39):
You got to do what you got to do. I understand that completely. So am I hearing a go Blue fan? Is that what I’m hearing?

Bob Woodruff (02:44):
Yeah, maybe. Yeah, the Wolverines,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (02:46):
Yeah, you probably don’t know this. I’m actually from ranking Frankenmuth, Michigan area, so right up north little town called Vassar, and I am a Go Blue fan. So anytime I’m near anybody from Ohio, I make sure to yell, oh, have them yell io. Then I say, sucks, and then I ask them why can’t they spell it by themselves? It’s pretty embarrassing. It’s only four letters, but they’re from Ohio. So it is what it is. But more importantly, so you joined a b, C News in 1996. I mean, how was that experience? Was that just the most amazing thing ever to have your own show and be America’s voice?

Bob Woodruff (03:20):
I don’t think I had America, let’s put it that way, but it was, I don’t know, I got this strange addiction to just doing something new every day because I was a lawyer before I practiced for four years and it was kind of used doing the same paperwork over and over again, which didn’t really fit with what I really loved the most. So I became into journalism because long story too about having lived in China when the massacre happened there in 1989. Wow. So I came out, I just got addicted to this idea of doing stuff differently every single day, a new topic, so, so when I finally got into it, which was really in 1996, I joined A, B, C and I was covering Department of Justice there in DC partly because they took advantage of me having been a lawyer. But all I really wanted to do is go overseas and maybe I just, like I said, maybe I just run from everything. So I wanted to go yet again far away. So then I got a chance to go over to London Report out of Europe and Yugoslavia and all of those days. Then Iraq, Afghanistan happened. So what

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (04:26):
Was one of the coolest places that you got to cover a story from? Either live there for a little bit or just even just maybe a couple of days you were there.

Bob Woodruff (04:34):
Usually when there’s something stunning just to look at is one of those stories you can’t believe you get to be there. There was a huge volcano that hit southern Italy in the town of Aetna or the mountain that was the volcano, Aetna, what is that like 20 years ago now. I remember going down there, we were able to go, well, all the other tourists and things were kept far away from it miles. We were able to actually climb. The volcano itself when it was bursting. We’re standing 30 yards away from this volcano bursting and we knew it was going a different direction. I just can’t believe I get a chance to see and look at this. That was really an amazing thing to go to. Then we did stories. We’d go out on race sailboats and that kind of stuff. These are the peaceful, happy ones. Other what a volcano exploding was happy. I guess it was because there wasn’t everybody killing. But then there was the times where the most highest, I’m sure you know more than this, you guys, what’s the word? When your blood is flowing, when you’re going into, oh,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (05:42):
Adrenaline, adrenaline and yeah,

Bob Woodruff (05:46):
That’s what you feel when you go to. So that’s the other thing I really loved doing. It was places that were war zones too and had that kind of addiction. So I wanted go and I wanted to go something where there’s a team of people there.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (05:57):
It’s impressive. I don’t know how anybody goes to a war zone without a rifle, right? I had grenades, I had rifle, I mean I had a rifle, I had a bunch of ammunition. I was not going outside of the gate without that. So the fact that you kept going and doing stuff like that, that’s got to be a crazy feeling.

Bob Woodruff (06:21):
Well, it’s interesting you say that because once upon a time there was this thought that the ones that are targeted by this were you guys the military and that the journalists were there and people were aware. They wear these clothes that would say press on it, and the assumption is the enemies don’t really target you because you’re just there to cover it. You’re not the ones shooting back. That of course, changed a hundred percent when it came to terrorist wars. Those guys no longer gave a who it was that they’re going to shoot at the insurgents. And I remember in Iraq, after the invasion, which I went in embedded with the first time I’ve ever been embedded, I went in with the Marines in from Kuwait. And so that was in 2003 by the march of 2004, after wandering the country, really after we were wandering the country in 2004, I think in March when they started to blow up these churches and towns and that’s when we couldn’t really travel assuming that we’re safe, that they were going to target everybody at any time. So that’s when we started embedding

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (07:37):
Bob. I’m about halfway through your book that you wrote with your wife and she mentions in the book how right before you got hit that she asked you, are you safe? And she said it kind of in passing. Did you always feel safe or was there a time when you were like, God, this is not a good situation?

Bob Woodruff (08:00):
I think so. I mean, I think there’s something natural in the brain that if you’re going to a place like that, you wouldn’t go unless you thought that there’s a certain thoughts of safety that you’re not going to die. I mean, I remember I thought about what if I got my finger blown off or something? I didn’t really think about getting killed. I think it makes no sense. If you think there’s a good chance you’re going to be killed, why would you go there?

(08:29):
I think you guys are a little different that once you’re in and you don’t know where you’re going, or maybe even you join the military before the war even starts, then you’re ordered to go to them. We have the journalists, we have the decision to make, do we want to go or not? We don’t have to go because I didn’t really feel like I was going to get killed or really badly, badly wounded. I didn’t think that was really going to happen. It’s stupid or whatever you want to call it, but it’s like a natural thing of the body to not to think about that if you’re really in fact going to go.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (09:05):
Did you feel a calling to go there during that time to maybe do your duty to report back to the people in maybe a truthful way?

Bob Woodruff (09:13):
I think so. I think it’s true. We all have a mix of it. We have one, we really think this will be enticing. It’ll be pretty amazing, pretty satisfying. And then others are, this is one I think we got to go and tell the story. I think we had previous wars, A lot of it was 1991 in Iraq. There was no military, no media was really able to go. So it’s hard to figure out what’s true and what’s not true. But I think the ones that are reporting just out of the White House or something, try to talk about what’s happening in the war zones. I just feel it’s usually inaccurate with a different attitude towards it. I think if you hate the media, it doesn’t matter. You’re not going to see anything better if you’re there in the war zones about what the media does.

(10:01):
And if you’re anti-war and you’re sitting there somewhere in some town in America, I don’t think you’ll ever have this real wake up that, oh my God, holy shit, these are really cool people. It’s not like this image of what it gets. I remember there was the first time I embedded when I went in with the Marines into Iraq in 2003, I remember the beginning. It was for sure this distrust, I guess both ways and a lot of it we still had a really bad reputation with the military US reporters. And I think after a couple of months and sitting there in the tank and never to wash eating a bunch of crappy food and see some dangerous things around you both, you were equal when the terms being targeted. I think that completely changed. And some people said, well, you guys manipulate it a lot of within the media world, there’s a lot of people thought that we’re biasing towards the military when we’re living with them and embedded with ’em.

(11:04):
And I said, that’s absolutely not true. The first time I was embedded, there was only two little rules that there were out there. One is don’t give live what our location is for obvious reasons. And the other one, it says, if anybody gets badly, badly wounded or killed, don’t report who they are until the family’s notified. Those are the only rules. The rest of was a fight we would try to gather and they would try to hide it and all of that kind of thing, which is part of the game. But that was the only rule. And then of course we became friends after going through a situation like that.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (11:40):
Yeah, it’s a real band of brothers in the military and that’s for all aspects of it. If you go through something like that, the not showering, the long hours, the constant repetitive patrols and the situations you find yourself in. There’s a guy in my book I talk about that. I ran down through a firefight and picked him up and I pulled him out of a firefight. He tore his knee up, M-C-L-A-C-L and meniscus and everything like that. It’s not a guy that I wanted to go out for drinks with. I didn’t necessarily enjoy his company. We were not friends to say it mildly, but he was somebody that I served with. He was somebody in my unit. And when he went down, there wasn’t a thought of like, Ooh, I don’t really like that guy. It was like, I have to go get him. So I think that comradery comes whether or not you guys trusted each other at the beginning, at the end you knew how to do the dance of, okay, I can shoot this or they’re not going to want me to get that, and I want to respect that. I want to go out with ’em again and all that. So I make light of a lot of situations. So just like you, my career blew up in 2012, but in 2007 you were injured pretty badly. Do you mind talking about that and what happened that day and how it changed your path, if you will?

Bob Woodruff (12:55):
Yeah, that one changed it in an instant, that’s for sure.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (12:57):
Yeah, yeah, I’ve been there.

Bob Woodruff (12:58):
Yeah, you’re right. You guys asked me if I ever thought about getting hit. I, so I never really saw it coming, but essentially I was out there, what was really my second in bed, we went out first, I mean with a third infant, fourth infantry. And so we were going to Taji because this was the point where it was right after the state of the union, the president Bush was about to deliver and he is going to talk largely about how this war, the power was going to be passed over from us to the Iraqi military. And they wanted to show what’s going on with these MIT operations where they’re going village to village to try to get to know the locals of the towns and try to help them in this recovery mode after the war. And so we wanted to go and see exactly what’s happening.

(13:56):
So we went out with a combined team of both us and Iraqi unit, and there were eight vehicles that were going to drive between village to village. We visited one, it was great. And then we got in again to go to a second one. This time I was me and my cameraman, Doug v and my sound man, hra, and then our sound guy and our producer were still inside the tank and Doug and I stood up over the top to do some shooting and the driver, the Iraqi driver said, you guys probably ought to get down. Now this might be an IED area. And of course we’re really about to go down and this thing blasted on the left and the power of those things are, as you know extremely well.

(14:48):
The speed of the sound is faster than the rocks and the metal that it shoes towards you. So the sound of it just knocked me out instantly. So I never felt the rocks and the metal coming, but it followed behind that and went from the left side, shattered my skull on the left and a bunch of the rocks and metal pierced all the way through the left part of my neck. One went all the way through to the other side, didn’t pierce through any veins or arteries and just stopped. One short of the artery almost went right through and they had to take it out two weeks later, almost thinking if they pull it, it may unplug it and bleed blinded in the upper right hand corner, both of my eyes from the blast, it shattered my scapula in my back. If I didn’t have a body protection on, I would dead for sure.

(15:44):
If I didn’t have helmet, I’d be dead for sure. And so the left part of my face was shattered. I had to go back and rebuild a lot of that and I went out instantly and then I woke up after a one minute because I was just unconscious. Then I woke up for about 10 minutes and I looked at my producer down below and I said, are we still alive, Vinny? And he said, yeah, you’re still alive. And that’s the last thing I remember until I woke up 36 days later. But I got a million stories I learned later on because people told me really the reality that they witnessed because they were awake and fine. And I got to say, these guys were amazing when we were ahead. All of the soldiers that were with us, plus the US and the Iraqis jumped out of their vehicles after this IED explosion.

(16:38):
And right then on all four sides of us, the insurgents who had detonated it open fire, and everybody who got out of the vehicles. So our guys all fired back. We have no idea if they hit ’em, they ran, they died, we don’t even know. And never really had the time or ability to go search to see if they could find them next at that time. So it put me into Bradley, me and Doug and a Bradley to take us about a mile down the road to be picked up by helicopter in that volcano. And I heard a story later from a couple of the pilots that they were ordered by radio by their boss to not land because there’s still fears of IED and also gunfire was going on, but they ignored it, turned down the radio to ignored it, came down and landed and took us out. I mean, unless you guys have about 10 hours to talk, I’ll tell you all the other stories, but

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (17:26):
No, no, no, that’s fine. That’s fine. The thing is, those things are so powerful and when they go off, they just, it’s instant. There’s nothing you couldn’t dodge dive or dip or dodge from that if you’re a fan of dodgeball, the movie. But for me, my body armor on the side plate was ripped almost all the way through by a golf ball size of metal. And if my body armor hadn’t been in that spot, it would’ve cut my body right in half. So I understand that completely. Weeks after my injury or months after I still had shrapnel that would pop out of my face and my cheekbones where my cheeks sat, my wife would like, oh, hey, you got this. And she’d pluck it out with tweezers,

Bob Woodruff (18:08):
You have the same phone.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (18:09):
It’s a weird thing to talk about, right? Yeah, it’s a very small amount of people that have been through that. So I mean, it took you some time to recover and relearn probably a lot of things and get back on your feet and things like that. But after that, you returned to the news, return to the news desk. And what was that feeling like to go through the recovery to be knocked out but not knocked out? How did that feel?

Bob Woodruff (18:34):
Well, can I ask you just real quick, since you just mentioned it, the ID that blasted was underneath you, right?

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (18:40):
Sent my backpack down on it. It’s right next to me, but underneath, yeah. Yeah,

Bob Woodruff (18:45):
That was the road. It was like sand or I mean it was dirt. It wasn’t on pavement.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (18:49):
No, mine was dug into the side of a mound.

Bob Woodruff (18:52):
Yeah,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (18:53):
I was walking. I set my backpack down on my right side and that’s when my right arm, right leg, they were taken immediately and my left side was dangling to say the least of my left leg. Basically they had to duct tape it to my thigh, as weird as that sounds. And then my left arm was still kind of in use.

Bob Woodruff (19:10):
Amazing man. I think you’re like one of the 10 quad that actually survived. I mean,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (19:17):
There’s five of us total and two of them got double arm transplants, so they’re not really in my club anymore. They quit on us. So there’s only three, but no, there’s five. And the guy after me, the fifth one, he’s a good friend of mine, Taylor Morris, and we’ve both been able to live some pretty normal lives, I guess you could say after the injury. We’re both married, both have, he has a daughter and one on the way. And my wife and I had a daughter when I was injured, and she’s 11 now, and my son is five. He was after the fact. And it’s something people say, I don’t know how you do that or if I could ever do that, but the truth is you just don’t find out because you’re capable of a lot more than you think. And I think you had to find that out the hard way.

(19:57):
And I know it wasn’t easy on your wife. For me, it’s more of the burden I was going to be on my wife that drove me to not only get better and push so hard in my recovery to walk and feed myself and drive again and things like that, but it was the thought of, I’m going to be a burden. And I told her she should leave me because this isn’t what I would choose for her. I had my doubts about what kind of life I would live going forward after my injuries. And luckily she was like, Nope, that’s not how this works. And we’ll get those together.

Voice over (male) (20:28):
The conversation continues in moments.

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The American Hero Show is brought to you by foundations, investment advisors, benefiting the Travis Mills Foundation. You’ve worked your entire life and now is the time to plan for the unknown. Just like what happened to Travis, you never know what life might throw at you. And things can change even if you have a plan, sometimes things happen that you can’t plan for. Foundation’s, investment advisors helps pre-retirees and retirees manage risks in the new normal economy as a fiduciary. Foundations does not charge commissions and works with independent advisors nationwide. To request your complimentary customized financial plan, go to american hero show.com

Voice over (male) (21:11):
And now the conversation continues with Travis. And Tim,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (21:15):
Like you, I started the nonprofit too, the Travis Mills Foundation, but can you tell us about your nonprofit, why you started it and maybe what caused you to want to create it?

Bob Woodruff (21:27):
Yeah, that exact topic and the one you just asked me about getting back and somehow report again was really at the same time. And I think for many of the same reason is that we’re in Bethesda Navel. Once I was hit, went off to Balad where they rebuilt my whole health, it removed my left part of my skull so the brain could breathe and then they xed my entire rest of my body. Or they tried to, and then off to long stool in Germany and then back to Bethesda Naval. And this is pretty fricking amazing. It’s like 72 hours after that blast where you look back in Vietnam, it something like 37 days to get people out that are wounded back to hospitals in the us. I mean, just the technology is amazing to stabilize the vehicle, the planes and the helicopters. But anyway, so when I got back to there, I was out for 36 days and there I was on the third floor, the Bethesda Naval.

(22:31):
And there’s a lot of, obviously it’s navy, it’s, there’s a lot of Marines that were badly wounded, the other ones on that third floor. And so my three brothers would come and my parents, actually, they were both still alive then. And then of course my wife, the kids were not allowed to come in because what it would look like to them. So they were on the third floor and we had no idea. They didn’t know if I was going to live or not, but they saw all of these other marines that were on the same place. And sometimes it makes me cry that a lot of them were still out unconscious, like me and other ones were badly wounded. There was amputees. Most of the ones that were burnt were down in Texas, but this was like the center of the brain injury, the ones that are badly impacted by it.

(23:28):
And they came in and my brother and my wife and my two brothers said, listen, is there any way when you leave this place, this is actually after I woke up and they realized I was still alive and I’m wandering, be able to get around the floor. And they said, when you come back, you’ve got us, you’ve still got your job at a, B, C, you’ve got some stability. Or also at the time I was 45 years old compared to 22 in the Marines. And they thought there’s going to be the biggest problem when all the people go back to their towns and their cities is they may not have exactly the same kind of support once they leave and they will. The VA was amazing, but certainly not prepared for these kinds of wounds. And we’re worried about, there’s going to need to find a way for the people of our country to fill that gap between what the family can do, the friends can do on what the government can do.

(24:36):
And so they thought, well, let’s start a simple little foundation and we can just raise some money. And there’s one family told her they had to get out of their base and move somewhere. They didn’t have a mattress for the new place they needed. So can you get someone to help that? Or people needed to get a vehicle to get from one place to another. So can we get somebody to donate to get a car, whatever these relatively simple ones at the time and started a foundation. We didn’t think it was going to last more than a year or something when this thing was right at the peak of the war. But of course it didn’t end and it didn’t stop, and the fact it kept getting worse. So it’s continued ever since.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (25:20):
Did you think the foundation was going to have as big an impact? Obviously you just said you thought it was only going to last a short while, but did you think that your foundation was going to have as big an impact as it does now?

Bob Woodruff (25:32):
No. I think no, we didn’t even think it was going to survive. Yeah, it’s interesting, just back, I think at that time there were something along the lines of 45,000 organizations, charity groups that were trying to do something for the military. This was right at the peak peak of the 2006, and we didn’t think it was going to last all that long. And we knew it was going to be a challenge, but we had to raise some money. And that was easier there then than it is now in some ways in terms of the amount nationwide. And so somebody called after seeing the documentary that I did, which came out 13 months after I was hit because I was pretty much just the hospital the whole time. And then finally we were able to put together this documentary of quick mention about what happened to me and my cameraman, but then largely what was happening in the country to try to deal with these huge numbers of wounds, severe wounds, where in previous wars we would’ve been, Travis, you and I would be dead.

(26:38):
We would not have survived at all in previous wars. So that opens up these other problems. So we try to do some raise fundraising, and it wasn’t simple. We didn’t really have much of a reputation yet or anything, but we had this one group that runs the comedy festival in New York who saw the documentary and says, listen, every November we got all these comedians that come once you guys, we can put together free. Everybody wants to donate their time to do it. We can have a show. We said, oh, okay, that’s cool. That’d be great. So we can send sell some tickets. And next, another friend of mine worked at Sony and says, listen, I think we can get Springsteen to do it too. I said, oh wow, that’d be awesome. Then he volunteered this time. So I mean, that was one that kind of gave us a little bit hope that we can at least raise some money with the foundation.

(27:27):
And we’ve done that same show since 2007 every single year. And Bruce Springsteen’s done it, everything but one year of it. So we’ve been able to raise that Travis, I don’t know. But raising money is never easy, but at least I guess in some ways we got incredible feedback from people and I think everybody involved in it, and especially me and my wife and my brother, it was the most satisfying thing I think we’d ever done in our lives. So we just wanted to keep it going and we had a lot of demands to do so. So it’s been pretty remarkable. We didn’t think it would still be here, let’s put it that way.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (28:05):
Yeah, I mean, I get that. My wife and I started our foundation to do care packages, $5,000 donation from Kelsey and I, and now looking back, we bring in eight families per week at this retreat we built and giving back to these families that have been through physical injuries. We’ve expanded with a post traumatic stress program, and I’ve been very conscious of we’re going to use the Army’s method of crawl, walk, or run. So we’ll not get too big for ourselves and we’ll make sure that we can always cover our costs and expenses and never get too big too fast and implode. So I commend you and your wife and your brother on doing that. And you’re right, it does feel good. I mean, I don’t take a dime and it’s just about giving back and it feels good to watch these families come together that, like you said, don’t have maybe the support system they had at Walter Reed out Balboa at bams C and be able to reconnect and to see that there’s other families out there like them and have other kids that are like, oh my gosh, there’s another dad or mom like my dad or mom, and that’s why we do it.

Bob Woodruff (29:03):
You guys are here. So I mean, there’s so many that, listen, the 46,000 or 45,000, I said it by the number of organizations back then. There’s maybe a thousand left or something, not even that. So you guys, clearly you’re the survivors because you’re the best. So glad.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (29:21):
Well, I just cheated. I took Garrison Niece’s philosophy of building houses for guys like me, and then I thought, well, let’s bring those people out of their homes and bring ’em back together. So I really just kind of stole all the people from Garris sneeze, tunnel towers and Charitable Foundation that I knew. But no, it’s great. We supply that respite and relaxation, but okay, so in our wrap up, I know your time’s very valuable and everything. You’ve been part of some amazing things in history. You’ve covered, you’ve got some really prestigious awards. I mean six Emmys, what the DuPont Award and George Foster Peabody, or I mean, sorry, Alfred a Alfred I DuPont Award. Sorry, reading’s not my first thing. I missed a sign that said Bomb right here. What idiot. But I mean, out of all the awards and the Emmys and the accolades, what are you most proud of, do you think?

Bob Woodruff (30:09):
Well, I think I talked to you already, the one about doing this foundation to help others that are, we’re in, we’ve got this tight group, those that have been wounded in the wars. Yeah,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (30:19):
It’s funny, right?

Bob Woodruff (30:20):
That’s the most satisfying in terms of stories that I’ve done, that kind of work and awards that we got. I mean obviously I think I’m still quite proud of what we did a year after I was hit about the foundation. I really was kind of a wake up. I think that people realized that we’re not prepared to do what’s needed to be done to help the military that were wounded or even those handful of us in the military that were there too and wounded or killed. So I think that was incredibly satisfying. I’m doing almost all just long form stuff now, just documentary work or long form on everything from Nightline to Hulu to Nat Geo where we do those kinds of stories. One of them that we did, I actually, it’s called Road Trip. This is where I did it with my son. I

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (31:17):
Love this. This is great. I’m glad glad you mentioned this. Yeah, this

Bob Woodruff (31:21):
Is awesome. That’s incredibly satisfying because all these countries that I’ve been reporting on all those for years, well before I was wounded is countries, actually, this is with all media these days, is that everything’s like sad, depressing stories. So I’d go into a story about how the weather’s killing people or there was a war that everybody died or there’s starvation here. So all these countries that I report on, I wanted to go and show my son that these countries actually have amazing people in amazing places. So we went to Columbia and then Ethiopia and Lebanon and Pakistan and Papua New Guinea. And ironically the last one that my daughter joined, that one was Ukraine because that was nothing but depressing. So now it’s back to depressing again. But back then, just to be able a chance to go that that was incredibly satisfying. And I just finished a five episode series on Fentanyl. Dunno if you guys know that story, but Fennel is a drug.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (32:32):
I know what fentanyl is. Yeah, I didn’t know you did a five part series on it.

Bob Woodruff (32:35):
Yeah, sadly everybody does. But I dunno if you saw it or not. But there was, here’s the irony, and this is up on the topic we’re talking about is I realized this about a year and a half ago because I’ve done stories on this before, and there was one medic who I found out that he was the one that was in Baghdad, a guy named David Williamson, and he was the guy that was a medic in Bethesda Hospital when everyone thought I was going to die, but I lived. But he’s the guy that actually injected me with fentanyl because fentanyl is an amazing drug when it’s used in hospitals and doctors to control the amounts. It’s a great painkiller. And he injected flash forward and he threw another surgery. He had to take Oxy as a painkiller, and then that ultimately gave him an addiction tie in heroin, added to it became a heroin addict.

(33:47):
And then so many others that have died or become addicted to as well to fentanyl is what Fentanyl accidental and not accidentally intentionally by the dealers ended up in the heroin he took. And he also was nearly killed by Fentanyl, the guy who used Fentanyl to help save my life 10 years before. So that was also in that series too. And that was one of the most satisfying thing too, because now he is clean and along with his amazing wife, they lived down in the Austin area in Texas. But what about that? It’s like this stuff’s impacted our lives and we have so many friends that have gone through something similar and that too. So I think those stories were the ones that I thought at least we’re a wake up to people, a message that I wanted to give them. And it’s longer form.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (34:40):
Yeah, absolutely. That’s amazing. Bob, your time’s very valuable. I mean, Tim and I just can’t thank you enough for being part of the American Hero show. You are truly a hero and I’m thankful for the work that you and your wife are doing. You guys are, and hopefully I get to cross passes as you in person sometime, Tim. I would

Bob Woodruff (34:57):
Love that, man. Where do you guys live, by the

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (34:59):
Way? Manchester, Maine. I live up in Maine. So about right outside of Augusta? Not that far. Wow. Yep. I got to go to Atlantic City actually coming up here in a little bit. So I’m going to be driving right through New York.

Bob Woodruff (35:08):
Wait, and you’re doing some speeches and things like that?

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (35:11):
Yeah, it’s my primary job now. I do about 50 a year and then I own a restaurant. I just opened up in a few other businesses, so I keep myself as busy as possible. Good for you. Yeah. Do you ever get up this way, Bob? Have you been to the foundation?

Bob Woodruff (35:23):
My daughter went to BC, so I’d go far up as Boston. I don’t really get much far north of that.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (35:30):
Well, if you go to Portland, I’m only an hour from there and Tim lives in Portland, so we’ll take you out to nice seafood. I don’t like it, so you don’t got to about me eating anything lobster related. Now, shrimp I can do if you want fish. Everybody kept asking me yesterday night at my restaurant. They’re like, oh my gosh, what’s in the fish tacos? I’m like, fish, what kind of fish? I’m like kind, that’s in the water. They’re like, yeah, but what kind? I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t eat it. Why would I care? But it’s delicious. But alright. Hey, thanks so much for your time. We’ll let you get back to your day and really appreciate you talking with us today, sir. You

Bob Woodruff (36:00):
Guys are the best. Thanks so much for having me on, man.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (36:03):
I love it. You’re a winner. Love you

Bob Woodruff (36:04):
Guys. Thanks so much.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (36:05):
I’ll tell you what, Tim, oh my goodness, what a crazy story. Can you imagine being a correspondent? Just like embedded thinking, I’m just going to get pictures and videos and stories, do everything I can to stay out of the way, but help paint the picture for everybody back home and then a bomb goes off. Not that I expected to have a bomb go off on me, but I knew as part of the risk my job, that it could happen. And I’m not sure if you have that same, same thought process going over as a civilian reporter, but boy, Bob’s been through the ringer. I’m sure he wishes it didn’t happen, but he’s come out the other side just fighting. He’s a

(36:42):
Fighter. I mean, not just a fighter, but I think he had to, I watched some videos of him during his recovery after he got hit and his kids were teaching him new words and he was going through it with positivity. But if you looked at him and when you look at him, the doctors did an amazing job.

(37:01):
Yeah, they did. They definitely did. It’s

(37:02):
Amazing. You can barely tell

(37:04):
And that’s why he gets to be on TV still. But you can see him light right up out of all the accolades and all the awards, and I get that we always strive to have an award or to be noticed for something maybe or something that you want. Purple hearts aren’t something that you want to earn, but people get him type deal. It seemed like out of all the awards and all this stuff, he was more proud of the foundation as well as being able to take his kid, or both kids actually for the last episode, like he said on the show on Disney Plus. And I think that’s the incredible part, right? When you have something that’s so traumatic happening, you realize what’s important in life. And I think we learned that over most important was our families and things like that as well. But now it’s about what stories can I tell that I’m passionate about? And he does a great job and kudos to him and his wife are keeping it together and being so strong.

(37:53):
We kind of jested and said, Hey, do you ever get to Maine? But it would be great if he came up here and did a little something on the Travis Mills Foundation. I think he, having been in a similar situation as a lot of the guys that come up or families that come up to your foundation, you get something out of it.

(38:10):
Oh, definitely, definitely. And the invite, it wasn’t, wasn’t lighthearted, insincere, it was fully sincere. Full sincerity in that one, Tim. But for all of our peoples listening out there, hey, thanks so much for tuning in. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. You can find more [email protected]. If you don’t listen, my mom will call you. Sherry Mills is ruthless if you make her a little boy upset. And that’s me and you can find out more information on [email protected]. I’m the guy with no arms, no legs in the pictures in case you couldn’t sort through and figure out which one I was. Tim, what do you got? American Hero show.com. Nailed it Tim. Thanks.

Voice over (male) (38:51):
Four more on how you can help our country’s heroes. Go to American Hero show.com.