Episode Details

What happens when your father dies just as he begins to see you as a man?

Tommie lost his father in 2004, only 13 years into his 30-year Army career—and just as their relationship was beginning to change. Lance had his father through almost his entire military career but lost him before retirement.

In this deeply personal conversation, Tommie and Lance examine father loss, grief, father-son relationships, the need for a father’s approval, and what grown men still need from their fathers after building careers and families of their own.

They discuss how a father’s presence—or absence—can shape the way a man approaches leadership, marriage, fatherhood, success, and some of life’s hardest decisions. They also consider how men who lost their fathers early, never knew them, or never felt truly seen can build the guidance and affirmation they didn’t receive.

This is not a conversation about comparing grief. It is about carrying the love, lessons, unanswered questions, and desire for our fathers to witness the men we became.

If your father is still here, what conversation have you been waiting to have with him?

If he’s gone, what part of the person you became do you wish he could have seen?

Hosted by retired Army leaders Tommie Jones and Lance Taylor, Four Titles, One Truth brings honest conversations shaped by four perspectives: husbands, fathers, veterans, and Black men.

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