From Panama to Hollywood: Lavelle Lemonier’s 25 Years of Service—and What Came After

From the hostThe Post-Flight Debrief

What struck me most about this conversation was how much ground Lavelle covered — not just geographically, but generationally. He came in during an era when service was a calling, watched the culture shift in his final years, and still came out the other side with more projects running than most guys half his age. I left the recording feeling like I’d only scratched the surface, which honestly doesn’t happen every episode.

On a career that spans everything: Lavelle was 19 years old, going into Panama, hearing what he described as little whistles going past his ear before realizing they were live rounds. That’s the entry point. What followed was Somalia during Black Hawk Down, two Iraq deployments, Afghanistan — basically the full timeline of American military engagement from 1989 to 2012. What hit me was that he carried all of that and still found a way to build something entirely new on the other side. That doesn’t happen by accident.

On generational change: Lavelle made an observation that I’ve thought about since we finished recording — that the biggest shift he saw in his final years wasn’t in tactics or technology, it was in mindset. He described younger enlistees treating service like a nine-to-five. His words, not mine, and I understood exactly what he meant. I came in right after 9/11 when the feeling to serve was visceral. By the time I got out in 2023 I was seeing some of that same drift he described. It’s not a condemnation of younger veterans — it’s just an honest observation from someone who watched it happen over 25 years.

On the deported veterans documentary: Lavelle is directing Served in Exile, a documentary about non-citizen veterans who were deported after serving. When he laid out the cases — men raised in the U.S. from infancy, pledging allegiance every day in school, swearing the same oath we all swore, then dropped at the border with nothing — I found myself genuinely conflicted. I think veterans who serve honorably should have a clear path to citizenship. I also understand the complexity of where lines get drawn. What I know for certain is that it deserves a conversation, and Lavelle is doing the work to make sure that conversation happens.

On creativity as therapy: When Lavelle talked about how getting into filmmaking — completely by accident, starting with behind-the-scenes photography on a movie set — gave him an outlet he didn’t know he needed, I thought about how many veterans are walking around with a creative instinct they’ve never acted on. He made the point directly: if you can write it out, act it out, build something with your hands, that process can do things for your head that nothing else will. His garden bed product came from the same place — a personal need that turned into something he could share.

Takeaway: Lavelle Lemonier is proof that the service doesn’t end when the uniform comes off. Twenty-five years, four major deployments, a second career built from scratch — and he’s still moving. Whatever you carried out of the military, there’s something worth building with it.