We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Donald Cooke. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Donald below.

Donald, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Last year I built a guitar for the grandson of a fallen soldier that served with me. SSG Bertilino served with me in OIF from April 2003 until he passed in November 2003. He used to come ask me to play guitar in the makeshift church he and a few others had put together. I told him I would but put it off. He asked me once every couple weeks. I kept forgetting or putting it off. I finally did play in the makeshift church, for his memorial service. Fast forward 20 years and I found his son on Instagram. I reached out to him and talked to him on and off. I offered early in to build him a guitar but he said no. This last year his oldest son wanted to start playing guitar. He took me up on my offer and I built them a guitar.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started playing guitar when I was 12. My mother was a teacher and father was in construction. We were not poor but there was no extra money to fix the old guitar I had. So I started to teach myself by trial and error. After I graduated high school, I joined the Army in 2001. 7 months after I joined was when the twin towers were attacked. Guitar took a back seat during my 6 years of active duty. After the Army I went to college, then directly into being a Fire Marshal / Fire investigator. I picked back up my hobby of playing and working on guitars. Then worked into building them. I used building them as a form of meditation for me. Then I began to encourage other veterans and first responders to start playing. It can help relieve stress. I feel strongly in helping those in high stress environments such as veterans , active duty, and first responders to find positive outlets. Since retiring in July, I focus my time in building guitars that I can sell to, the groups I named above, for far less than industry prices. I also play the National Anthem on guitar for public events as often as I can. That’s how I celebrate those that are still serving!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I have several goals in my journey. First is to help as many veterans, military, and first responders as possible to start playing guitar as stress relieve. I also want to support fellow service members in business and arts endeavors. I strive to play the National Anthem at as many places as I can. I enjoy doing it and I try to bring spirit and grit I to the performance as sometimes is lost by many performers. My little secret goal is to build and hand deliver a guitar to Dave Grohl.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

As a higher level goal I always keep in mind is support and connection. What I mean is that while service members need to know they have support, I feel that civilians have a difficult time understanding service members. This is especially prevalent in family and friend relationships. Service members of all types see and deal with the things that the rest of the world does not want to think about. For example: a person dies in a horrific crash. That one accident will impact dozens of service members. The medics, the firefighters, the police, the coroner, witnesses…. The list goes on. Rest assured that those people that worked the accident will also remember it in great detail for the rest of their lives. Then when you consider it’s something they will witness over and over. It creates a divide. The service member does not want to talk about it. They want to protect those close to them so they are not going to impact those they care about by telling them these horrific things. I do believe that music begins where words end. It can be used to communicate and release that trauma.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ledfiddleguitars.wixsite.com/ledfiddleguitars?fbclid=PAAabEzlsXqiOt-0ArBxn33dUfcjtLIY8HwuSCQCbzZZj6lvlwxHhvRIRF76k
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ledfiddle?igshid=MDM4ZDc5MmU=
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LedFiddle?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ledfiddleguitars6712

Image Credits
All pictures are mine