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He survived Mosul, but the hardest fight started after he came home. Bill Krieger, a U.S. Navy veteran and Michigan National Guard military police officer, walks us through a life defined by the search for belonging, the weight of leadership, and what PTSD and panic attacks can look like when you don’t yet have words for them.

We trace Bill’s path from a chaotic childhood in Lansing to the Navy, where boot camp, technical training, and destroyer life give him structure and a “tribe.” He shares how recruiting taught him real-world communication, de-escalation, and leadership lessons that followed him into a long civilian career at Consumers Energy. Then the story turns: marriage mistakes, strained family ties, a return to service after 9/11, and the grind of Officer Candidate School while working full time and earning a degree.

Bill’s Iraq deployment in Mosul brings the daily reality of combat, IEDs, casualties, and the moral pressure of sending people out and hoping they come back. When he returns, reintegration hits hard: anger, numbness, fear, and a suicidal moment interrupted by a phone call. From there, we talk about therapy, suicide prevention, and the unexpected lifeline he finds in storytelling through The Moth, plus how that same approach helps him build a workplace wellbeing podcast during COVID.

We close with Veterans Archives, Bill’s nonprofit dedicated to preserving veterans’ oral histories in their own words, and why legacy isn’t about being perfect, it’s about making what you do matter to someone. If this conversation moves you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it and feel less alone.

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