ABOUT THIS EPISODE
A special, shorter episode of Post-Op Reflections™. Rob Van Winkle, known to the world as Vanilla Ice, sat down with hosts Will Spencer and Neil Noakes at AWA Studios in Fort Worth, and the hour belonged to him: his mother’s rule to “stay on the dance floor,” growing up broke in Farmers Branch, the shoes he pulled out of a dumpster off Harry Hines, the 5.0 Mustang his mom co-signed and the house he bought her six months after “Ice Ice Baby” hit, and the tenth-grade kid who went on the Stop the Violence tour and by the next Monday was “a popular kid in school real quick.”
Then the conversation opens up: what pop culture gave a generation that knew who it was, what the “cyber world” is taking from one that doesn’t, why he wants the ’90s back, and why he believes love is the greatest gift we have and the thing that can unite us all. Will brings a night in Iraq; Rob brings his own. And Rob tells the stories that changed him: a Make-A-Wish kid named John with his posters on the wall, the Little Smiles kids in Palm Beach and the North Pole he built for them in an airplane hangar, and the Marine buddy who couldn’t make it past the first hospital room. Those are the places where he learned that smiles are contagious and you had better give one.
Post-Op Reflections™ is a production of the American Warrior Association, confronting moral injury to restore hope and renew purpose for service members, veterans, first responders, and their families through faith-based programs like Warrior’s Refuge™ and the R3 Program™. Learn more at www.awa-usa.org.
Whatever you carry, you are not alone, and healing is still within reach.
Produced by the American Warrior Association.
Debrief the Soul. Reclaim the Spirit.
