About the Show
Three Veterans.One Conversation.
We didn't start this podcast because we had it all figured out. We started it because we didn't — and we knew we weren't the only ones.
How It Started
The Night We Decided to Stop Pretending
Where it started — 2021
It started at a backyard fire pit in 2021. Marcus had just lost a contract. Derek's marriage was in a rough patch. James was questioning whether his nonprofit was actually making a difference. Three veterans, three beers, and a conversation that went until 2 AM.
Nobody was performing. Nobody was giving the 'I'm doing great, thanks for asking' answer. It was the most honest any of us had been in years — and it felt like something we'd been missing since we left the service.
That's when Marcus said it: 'We should record this.' Not to build a brand. Not to sell anything. Just to have the conversation out loud, where other veterans could hear it and know they weren't alone.
Three years and 47 episodes later, that's still what we're doing. The boots are still unpolished. The conversation is still real.
The Hosts
Meet the Crew
U.S. MARINES CORPS — Sergeant
6.5 Years · No COMBAT TOURS
Co-Host & Co-Founder
Bryan Jefferson
Founder, Devil dawg tech · St Charles, MO
Everybody teaches you the values. Nobody teaches you how hard they are to live on a Tuesday. Unpolished Boots is three Marine veterans working through that gap out loud — no script, no spit shine, no pretending we have it figured out. Topics follow the book we're writing. Boots on. Polish off.
"The military taught me that standards matter. Building a business taught me that standards without grace will break you."
U.S. Marine Corps — Sergeant
8 Years · 1 Combat Tour (Iraq)
Co-Host & Co-Founder
Derek Salinas
Veteran Transition Counselor & Speaker · San Antonio, Texas
Derek joined the Marines at 19 because his older brother had served and he wanted to prove something — to his family, to his neighborhood, to himself. He came home from Iraq a different person, and it took years to figure out who that person was.
The transition out of the Corps was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Not the combat. Not the training. Coming home. He spent two years struggling before he found the right support, and now he spends his time making sure other veterans find it faster.
Derek is the emotional core of the show. He's the one who slows down, asks how someone is really doing, and creates space for the answers that take courage to give. His episode on his marriage nearly ending is the one listeners cite most when they reach out.
"I spent years trying to be the same guy I was before I deployed. The day I stopped trying was the day I started actually living."
U.S. Navy — Lieutenant
10 Years · Multiple Deployments (Pacific Fleet)
Co-Host & Co-Founder
James Okafor
Founder & Executive Director, VetConnect Foundation · Houston, Texas
James was a logistics officer who spent a decade moving people and resources around the Pacific. He was good at it — methodical, calm under pressure, always thinking three steps ahead. Those same skills now run a nonprofit that connects veteran families with community resources in 14 states.
He started VetConnect Foundation after watching a fellow veteran fall through the cracks of a system that was supposed to help him. The bureaucracy was overwhelming, the resources were scattered, and nobody was connecting the dots. James connected them.
On the show, James brings the systems thinking. He's the one who asks 'why does this keep happening' and pushes toward structural answers. But he's also the first to admit when the system isn't the problem — when it's personal, when it's internal, when it's something only you can fix.
"Service doesn't end when you take off the uniform. It just changes shape. The question is whether you're willing to find the new shape."
What We Stand For
The Rules We Set for Ourselves
No Performance
We don't do the 'I'm doing great' answer. If something is hard, we say it's hard. If we got it wrong, we say we got it wrong.
No Glorification
We respect the service. We don't romanticize it. War is complicated. Transition is hard. We talk about both honestly.
No Easy Answers
We don't wrap things up with a bow. Real conversations don't end with a five-step plan. We sit in the complexity.
No Gatekeeping
You don't have to have deployed to belong here. You don't have to have a Purple Heart. If you served, your story matters.
Want to be on the show?
We're always looking for veterans, family members, and community builders with a story worth telling. No polished pitches. Just real people.