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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:02.04] - Austin von Letkemann
Humor and laughter and joy are leadership tools for sure. Quite frankly, we don't use them enough in the military.
[00:00:10.13] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. Today's guest is Austin von Letkemann. Welcome to the show, Austin.
[00:00:18.06] - Austin von Letkemann
How's it going? Thanks for having me on.
[00:00:32.20] - John S. Berry
Now that you're in Texas, you're still in the reserves, but you are also now a social media influencer.
[00:00:38.19] - Austin von Letkemann
Yes. It's been a really weird experience because there's so few of us on active duty, and the military doesn't quite know what to do with us. The regulations surrounding social media are fairly vague, quite frankly. Navigating it has been really interesting, but a lot of fun, very rewarding.
[00:01:02.12] - John S. Berry
You do a great job, but there's a lot of crap out there, too. I've noticed a lot of people in the military try to be influencers, and it doesn't work. Why does it work for you?
[00:01:09.13] - Austin von Letkemann
I think that what has worked really well for me is people feel like I'm going after their bullies, almost. Really, what I'm doing is I'm making fun of people that just don't quite get it. The person that doesn't value their service member's time, doesn't treat them like a human being. If you're the type of leader that will be in their barracks room every morning at five o'clock in the morning, but you don't know when their birthday is, you got to have a balance. You got to know them personally. I don't know. Coming up in the army intrusive leadership was a buzzword. The only way I ever got intruded on was ways that made my life way worse. So that's the people that I'm making fun of.
[00:01:56.05] - John S. Berry
What I've noticed that you do really well is you capture the enlisted perspective and the officer perspective. That's because you started off as an enlisted soldier.
[00:02:04.06] - Austin von Letkemann
Yeah, I did just shy of 10 years enlisted before I commissioned. It's kind of funny. Oh, God, I can't remember what his name is. The Assessions guy. He told me, he was like, You cannot fail a test and you can't get hurt because if you do, you'll be over your time in service and you'll have to come back and reapply. Thankfully, I made it through everything to include land nef.
[00:02:29.06] - John S. Berry
He sucks at land nef by the way. Self admitted.
[00:02:32.13] - Austin von Letkemann
I passed it. I passed it with four minutes. They gave us five hours to complete this course. It was Red Diamond at, I think it's Fort Moore now. Or no, did they change it back to Ben?
[00:02:45.12] - John S. Berry
It's Benning again.
[00:02:46.12] - Austin von Letkemann
It's Benning again.
[00:02:47.18] - John S. Berry
We overcorrected then overcorrected.
[00:02:50.10] - Austin von Letkemann
Yes, I think it's a new Benning now, though. It's different Benning.
[00:02:53.09] - John S. Berry
It's different Benning.
[00:02:54.05] - Austin von Letkemann
But yeah, no. I did 10 years enlisted, and I did three years in a combined arms battalion, three years in a Stryker Infantry Battalion, and then like three and a half years or so in a Brigade Support Battalion, and then I was in the NCOSC at a field artillery brigade. I've kind of seen a lot. You see a lot over the course of 10 years, especially as an enlisted guy. Something that still is so funny to me is there's five archetypes for senior officers, and you can immediately tell which one you're getting as soon as the new one comes in. You're like, Okay, is this the runner or is this like the chill dude? You know what I mean?
[00:03:35.11] - John S. Berry
Yeah, that's true. If you're a runner, especially in the infantry, they love you as an officer. Because there's only a few things you can control, right. You can control your level of physical fitness, your appearance in uniform and your attitude.
[00:03:47.08] - Austin von Letkemann
Other than that, you really don't know anything. Yeah, you don't control anything. God will spit on your plans.
[00:03:55.08] - John S. Berry
Yeah, and as a lieutenant, it's usually a pretty crappy plan anyway. Yeah, usually. They didn't need God's help. This is a bad plan from the beginning. I've been there. You're doing this at a very interesting time. Things have changed since I got out, and we're a much more sensitive force now. What I appreciate about your humor is you go pretty direct at that. As you said, you attack other people's bullies, and I appreciate that. How do you deal with the trolls or those in the military that don't like your humor, don't like you being an influencer, and don't like what you're doing?
[00:04:31.20] - Austin von Letkemann
Oh, God. It's always better to just ignore them. It's always better to just not read the comments. Like, I don't know. I just had somebody email me today and They asked me, Have you been talking to me for the last year? They've been getting catfished by somebody using my pictures and stuff. It's just better, usually, to just not read messages, just not read the comments. I know that what I'm trying to do is make people happy. That's it. That's all I want. Then advocate for service members and veterans in the way that I can right now, which is admittedly not a ton because I'm still on active duty. I work 60 plus hours a week. But doing what I can and knowing that I'm coming from a good place and just ignoring anybody that doesn't like it. I'm following the rules and I'm doing the right thing, so what do I have to be worried about?
[00:05:24.10] - John S. Berry
And leadership by example. Sometimes we think it's doing what we've been told, but I think sometimes it's also seeing the need and following your beliefs to fulfill that need. When I think back to the gallows humor when we were deployed, people laughed at things. And yet you've been able to take that level of humor and use it in everyday Garrison. I haven't seen that before. So how is it that you're able to just pick apart the things that happen on active duty? I guess it's pretty easy to pick it apart, but you make it interesting.
[00:05:55.08] - Austin von Letkemann
Yeah. Really, all I'm doing is saying saying out loud the things that we do. There's been so many times in my career where I feel like I take a step back and I'm like, Am I crazy? Am I the only one that is seeing this? What I found was when I started doing content, I am definitely not the only person seeing it. 99% of people are seeing it, and the 1% of people, generally the people making decisions, are not seeing it. The rest of us are just trying to make it work. That's not a dig on leadership because it very rarely do the frustrations of service members come from malice from their senior leaders. That is something I've definitely learned. I literally just say out loud what we're doing. Yeah, we're waiting here in formation for four hours. Why? Well, I don't know. The commander forgot that he set the formation time for noon. He went to lunch with the brigade commander. You know what I mean? Whatever it is. But it's been really funny talking about those issues because I've had a ton of battalion and brigade-level leadership, both Sarns Major and light colonels and full-word colonels, reach out to me and be like, I didn't even know this was something that frustrated people.
[00:07:10.02] - Austin von Letkemann
They'll change policy or whatever. They'll write a new policy letter. That's cool. The idea that maybe my video had a positive impact on even just a couple of hundred people's lives is really really cool to me. Very rewarding.
[00:07:23.13] - John S. Berry
We are still the greatest fighting force in the history of the world, and yet we don't always get it right. I I think the great thing is that you point it out. We make fun of it. We can laugh at it. But sometimes that's the only way we can learn about it instead of getting offended by it.
[00:07:37.07] - Austin von Letkemann
Yeah, for sure. I laugh at myself more than I laugh at anything else. Just know that when I'm making videos, I'm making fun of myself, too. Something that I include in some of the speeches that I give is the United States military is the only institution in the country that has always met its obligation to the nation. Not medicine, not education, not law enforcement, the United States military. It's not because we've always gotten things right, and it's not because we've successfully accomplished every single mission because we haven't. But when United States service members show up, they are ready to give their life for whatever they're doing, and that is our obligation. Being able to acknowledge, I don't know, the gravity of what we do, and then also being able to say, Hey, we don't get it right all the time, I think is so important.
[00:08:31.10] - John S. Berry
Yeah, absolutely. Feedback is a gift. Unfortunately, when we take ourselves too seriously, we don't want to hear the feedback. Sometimes getting that feedback in ways in humor and being made fun of. Look, if you're an officer, they're making fun of you either way behind your back. You may just not know about it. We've all done the stupid stuff. I mean, leadership is a skill that you don't just come out and, I studied leadership. I know how to lead. No, you learn by making the mistakes. Even at the senior leader level, at the policy level, there are things that we've dialed back. I think that's healthy, and I think it's good to be fun of it.
[00:09:02.22] - Austin von Letkemann
Yeah, absolutely. We've made lots of good changes. We've made good and bad changes, and I will not comment on specifics. But we always say it, we're a learning organization, and then you make a mistake, and sometimes you have a leader that really feels like we're not in a learning organization. I don't know. I like to preface, I don't have subordinates right now, but I always like to, in my initial counseling or when I bring the group together, I always like to say, I'll never get mad if you guys just bring things to me. I always make myself available to talk any time of day or whatever, and I really mean it. I've had people take me up on that. But yeah, we're people. We're flawed, many of us deeply flawed. We just don't get it right all the time.
[00:10:01.22] - John S. Berry
Once again, when our leaders don't get it right, like in the civilian world, it's not as funny when we make fun of them for some reason. But leaders fail all the time. I think the more the leader tries to set themselves apart from the team, the more difficult it is for the team to relate. Humor is a leadership tool. Would you agree?
[00:10:22.15] - Austin von Letkemann
Oh, my God. Humor is immediately disarming. If I can make you laugh, I've made you my friend. You are now my friend. If you're laughing- You're my friend then because you're laughing. That's how I look at it, honestly. It's so fun. I've put my foot in my mouth more times than I can. I've learned when I can make jokes and when I can't. But being able to inject a little bit of humor into a situation. Somebody left a comment on one of my videos that made me a little bit emotional. They were like, Yeah, I remember him back from 212 Cav. He would always be making jokes in the field, and we really needed that in that unit. I was just like, God, this person remembers me from 13 years ago. That was my first unit. I don't know. It's cool. Humor and laughter and joy are leadership tools for sure. Quite frankly, we don't use them enough in the military.
[00:11:20.08] - John S. Berry
There are times when humor is not appropriate. Yes. But there are other times, I think, when it is absolutely necessary. To squash that humor, You crush souls that way sometimes.
[00:11:31.18] - Austin von Letkemann
For sure.
[00:11:33.03] - John S. Berry
Tell us the funniest thing you experienced in the military.
[00:11:37.16] - Austin von Letkemann
Oh, the funiest thing? Okay. I went to PSYOP selection. This is not a story of me pumping myself up because I did not get selected. But I went to PSYOP selection. When we were getting ready to do everything, I started making jokes. What I do in military schools is I'll walk up to people and I'll be like, Did you guys start the paper yet? Then I'll walk away and people will be like, What paper? They'll freak out. But when we got to PSYOP selection, we're all in this big room and I went, Hey, did you guys study for the math test? This kid, I'll never forget this kid, one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life, but he had these gigantic Coke bottle glasses. He looks up and he goes, Math test? The whole room is dying laughing. I was like, Dude, I don't think there's actually a math. Why would we have to do a math test at PSYOP selection? Sure as shit, we did take a math test. There was a math test four days in after we had it. We'd slept like three hours over the course of four days at that point.
[00:12:45.09] - Austin von Letkemann
We wrote papers, we did debates, and we did take a math test.
[00:12:50.13] - John S. Berry
Wow. As an influencer now, in a Veteran led, we'd like to talk about, I'll preface it, was talking about the bigger, better future for veterans. Military service is extremely important, but for some of the greats, it's the foundation, it's the building block that goes on to even greater leadership opportunities and even greater professional opportunities. For you, it looks like you're wearing your own swag. You're already looking at the road ahead. Tell us a little bit about that.
[00:13:19.02] - Austin von Letkemann
I'm going to get out at some point, whether that is in seven years and I retire or two years from now or somewhere in between. The biggest thing that I'm grappling with is what is my advocacy going to be? Because this community has given me a platform. For whatever reason, for better or worse, the military and veteran community has said, We kind of like you. They have given me this opportunity. It's trying to figure out what I want to do to give back. That's been tough because I talk a lot about mental health, and I feel like that is advocacy enough for where I'm at currently because I work full-time. I don't really have time to take on a ton of projects. But figuring out what I want to do. One of the things that I've been looking at is ways that Tricare falls short for families. Spouses and children of service members, they don't necessarily get as much dental coverage as the service member does, for example. A specialist, if they get a $3,000 dental bill, they're just not getting their teeth fixed. I think I think that's reprehensible. That's something that I'm looking at.
[00:14:35.17] - Austin von Letkemann
I don't know. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. I work very closely with Black Rifle Coffee and the American Legion, and I will for as long as they'll have me. I love both of them. But figuring out what I want to advocate for and what that looks like is the biggest thing that I've been grappling with.
[00:14:56.22] - John S. Berry
You have the foundation for it. Now you have to be selective. You have the opportunities. How do you go about making that decision? What's your decision-making process like at this point?
[00:15:08.06] - Austin von Letkemann
Oh, God. That's one of the things that I learned early on is that I would try and tell everybody yes, and it just burned me out. It got me to a really dark place mentally. Now I have to tell pretty much everybody all the time, no, I don't have time. My schedule doesn't support this.
[00:15:26.03] - John S. Berry
But you don't say no to Camp Cowboy because you're here.
[00:15:28.07] - Austin von Letkemann
I don't say no to Camp Cowboy. The team here is phenomenal, and they're doing amazing things for our community. It makes me happy when I do have the opportunity to do certain things. I had somebody reach out to me over, I think, email, and they're reenlisting on Thursday. Is it Wednesday today? Yeah, they're reenlisting tomorrow. They were like, Hey, I want you to be my reenlistment officer. I was like, Absolutely. It just so happens he's in the unit right across the street from mine. I'm like, For sure, 100%. But yeah, I just have to say no to most people. And then I've had to learn what is the value that I put on my own time. If I'm going to take a day or a weekend or five days away from my kids, how much is that worth to me? And then figuring out... And it's an uncomfortable conversation to have with people, or at least it was initially for me, the conversation about money. But that's been part of the learning process, I don't know. I'm really blessed because I have so many people reach out to me. I do get to just pick what I want to do.
[00:16:38.12] - Austin von Letkemann
And so that's a cool aspect of where I'm at now.
[00:16:42.17] - John S. Berry
One of my great mentors said, Success in life is getting paid to be who you are. That's essentially what you're doing right now, which is phenomenal.
[00:16:52.22] - Austin von Letkemann
I truly am living my dream is what it feels like.
[00:16:56.23] - John S. Berry
Once again, started with the military. You can live your dream. I think that's what we've seen. I see we've seen ultimate fighters. We've seen the people that maybe they just want to become a dentist. But the military can get you there. That's the one thing that is so great about the military, not just the greatest fighting force, in the history of the world, and the best leaders you ever meet are in the military. But if you really want to do something, the military can get you to college, get you a professional degree, can help you get the job you want, develop the skills you want. I mean, it's such an important part of our society. And yet there's kids out there that say, Well, I don't have the resources to do this. I'm thinking, Yeah, you do. You got to raise that hand and enlist.
[00:17:35.13] - Austin von Letkemann
It helps you get a leg up in life through benefits, but really, it's what you go through. As a lieutenant, you are immediately put in charge of people up to and including their lives. You're put in charge of training. You're put in charge of sometimes millions of dollars worth of equipment. The average 24, 25-year-old doesn't have that on their resume. It's the same thing on the enlisted side, too, assuming that you can make it to even the junior NCO ranks. Your resume can just look a lot better than your peers of the same age. I talk to people all the time. People will message me and they'll be like, Yeah, I want to join the military, but I don't want to see combat. I'm like, All right, be a paralegal or be a dental assistant or be a physical therapy assistant, an X-ray tech, vet tech. There a bunch of jobs where you're probably not going to see combat. If we got the vet techs in combat, something's gone real wrong. But there's so many opportunities. I don't know. I feel like you can do anything in the military if you're willing to look hard enough for it and really work for it.
[00:18:48.07] - John S. Berry
Absolutely. I think the great thing is that progression keeps going. You can come in and think you're going to do one thing. You can switch MOSs. You can do something entirely different. But that opportunity is there. A lot of that opportunity comes from our leaders, which takes us to the after-action review. I'd love to hear your three best examples of leadership and three worst examples of leadership. Don't have to name names, but your experiences, either in the military or not in the military.
[00:19:17.00] - Austin von Letkemann
The best example of leadership I had, I had a battalion commander at Fort Sill, and he could balance the needs of the mission with the needs of the individual. I don't know how he did it. I think he had a crystal ball or something. He was doing some voodoo in the back room or something. I don't know. But he just did it so well. I felt like my time was valued. I got to Fort Sill, and then I went to a BSBO Logistics Unit for the muggles out there. I'd always heard logistics units are where MI careers go to die, where military intelligence careers go to die because there's no military intelligence. They're like, Who are you getting mentorship from? But it was very much not the case. It's because he decided to take a specific interest in me. I got there, and the captain that was supposed to be my OIC was retiring. Then it was just me and a soldier for this entire battalion. He was like, Hey, I'm going to help you, but I still expect a captain's worth of work to getting done here. There was a lot of stress, but I did get it done.
[00:20:36.16] - Austin von Letkemann
It's all thanks to him. He would sit down with me in the field. He would pull me to the side in the office, and he would mentor me. He's the reason why I'm an officer now. I'll never forget. I got back from ALC, the advanced leader course, to get promoted to staff sergeant. I went into my Star Majors office and I was like, Hey, I want to go on a recruiting duty. I'm about to finish my bachelor. I want to knock out a master's on a recruiting duty, and then I want to get out of the army. He was like, Man, you've been doing both the OIC and COIC role for so long. We really thought you were going to go to OCS. I was like, It's just not for me. I don't really want to be an officer, yada, yada. I gave all the normal excuses. But he was like, All right, I'll talk to the battalion commander about it. Well, the next day, the battalion commander saw me in the motor pool, and he immediately made a beeline for me. I was like, All right, who is in jail? What property is missing?
[00:21:32.00] - Austin von Letkemann
What did I do wrong? I think I was still an E-5 at this point because I hadn't been promoted yet. But when your battalion commander is walking towards you and you're very much a junior leader, you're like, Crap, what did I do? But he was like, Sir Major told me you want to go to a recruiting, get out of the army. I was like, Yes, sir. He goes, You're not getting out of the army. He said, You're going to OCS. He said, I've already written your letter of recommendation, and this is happening. I was like, Sir, I don't know how to be an officer. He's like, What do you think OCS teaches you? I was like, All right, you got me there. OCS did not teach me how to be an officer. It did humble me for sure. That was an amazing example of really good leadership. I think you asked me for three. I've had so many leaders that took an interest in me enough. The biggest thing, the most impactful thing for me, I very much wear my emotions outwardly. And so when somebody is willing to stop me and be like, Are you good?
[00:22:35.07] - Austin von Letkemann
That means a lot because I won't talk about it. I won't talk about it really. I don't know. I'll just go about my day. But when people are willing to engage with that kind of stuff, I don't know. That's really, really meaningful to me. That would be the advice that I give to especially junior leaders. It feels uncomfortable, but it shouldn't. It won't be uncomfortable after a while, after you get a little better at it. But just ask. Got a fly on me. Just ask the question, Are you good? They might say, Yeah, and they might not be good, but at least they know you care. You've done something, you've developed a little trust or whatever. You've gotten a rep in on potentially having an awkward conversation. Now, bad leadership. I'm not even going to say what duty station this was at. But there was a unit I was in, and I don't know how it worked out this way, but there were three separate times when we were in the office until 23:00 or later, and we had a zero four division run. I don't know if they planned it. I don't know why they would plan us to only get four hours of sleep before a division run, but I swear to God.
[00:23:46.09] - Austin von Letkemann
That also happened to be the unit where I'm pretty sure every single time I had duty, it was always on the weekend. Every time.
[00:23:53.16] - John S. Berry
Yeah, that division run, it really robs. and if you think about it You're not getting to sleep, and then it's not like you're getting a workout. You're going to run at a 10-minute mile track. 12. Yeah, fair enough. Wow.
[00:24:07.00] - Austin von Letkemann
Yeah. It was always we're buying back time is what they would tell us. That's why we were in the office late. Then I don't know where all the time went. Somebody has that time somewhere, I think in a room somewhere, in a drawer. I don't know because I never saw it. But the number one thing for me, how I want to be shown that leaders care is just respect my time. I fully recognize we're in the military, so there's no standard hours. Sometimes you're going to work until 11 o'clock or whatever. I've had plenty of those nights. But time is so precious. You can't get it back. You can go do something else. You can go make more money. You cannot get back time. It's frustrating. But yeah, another piece of advice, value your service members time for the junior leaders out there.
[00:24:55.09] - John S. Berry
Don't be an oxygen thief, but also don't be a time thief. Yes.
[00:24:59.13] - Austin von Letkemann
Don't be a thief of anything, I guess, unless it's like hardship. If you want to take on other people's hardship, do that.
[00:25:05.20] - John S. Berry
Absolutely. All right. As we come to a close, where can veterans, and most veterans know who you are, but where can veterans learn more about you and your mission?
[00:25:16.01] - Austin von Letkemann
I'm on every major social media platform as Mandatory Fun Day on X. For some reason, somebody already has it. I've tried messaging him. He hasn't messaged me back yet, but I'm the monotone Mustang on X. Then you can go to themandatoryfunday.Com, and I've got a bunch of stuff on my website. I've actually recently started doing geo-politics content. Surprised that hasn't gotten me in trouble yet, but it is very funny, so go check that out on YouTube.
[00:25:43.06] - John S. Berry
To say your name correctly, Austin Von Lectkemann.
[00:25:47.10] - Austin von Letkemann
That's it.
[00:25:48.23] - John S. Berry
I got it right. Well, thank you so much for coming on to Veteran Lead and all that you do for the veteran community. Your dedication to your country is so important, but more important... It's so important But also your dedication to all the soldiers, making them laugh and pointing out the stupidity that we as leaders do making fun of them so we can laugh at ourselves and get better.
[00:26:12.01] - Austin von Letkemann
I appreciate you having me on.
[00:26:15.18] - John S. Berry
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting veteran leadership in business, strengthening the veteran community, and getting veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching at Veteran Led on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Lead.