Weekend Plans is our exclusive lifestyle feature where we highlight the real off-duty routines of the most exciting people in culture.  This weekend, Academy Award-nominated actor and prominent veterans’ advocate Gary Sinise chats with The Daily Wire to celebrate the most magical year of his late son Mac’s life, offer words of wisdom for those journeying through heartbreak, detail how the Gary Sinise Foundation serves with holy purpose, and unwittingly prove why his trailblazing legacy just might last forever.  *** Gary Sinise settles into his home office in Nashville, sporting a black polo emblazoned with his foundation’s logo and a fittingly off-duty Lt. Dan Band ball cap. If you only know him for his lauded film and television career, or for founding Chicago’s world-class Steppenwolf theater, you should know he’s also a monster on bass. He’s flanked by candid family photos carefully placed among various awards and mementos, an assortment of handheld U.S. flags, a military service banner, and other cherished treasures. The latest vinyl collection of his son Mac’s posthumous musical work, “Resurrection & Revival: Part Three,” suits the tableau. Each album cover in the three-part series features a portrait of Gary’s then-17-year-old grandfather on horseback before he shipped out to France to serve in World War I.  Gary’s smile is warm and present. I don’t find out until later that he was just on the phone with the wife of someone killed in the recent crash at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He meets me in the moment. “Hi there,” he says. I can’t believe I’m talking to Lieutenant Dan. Still, Gary’s iconic “Forrest Gump” character takes a respectful backseat to this chapter of life, much of which quietly beckons grief to the surface.  I’ve listened to Mac Sinise’s stunning “Arctic Circles” and soulful “Shenandoah,” featuring the harmonica Mac taught himself to play as a rare cancer overtook his body, making it impossible to drum like he once did. He recorded both tracks with a studio orchestra on the cusp of his death in 2024 at age 33. “He was able to finish that album before he died, and I mean just weeks before he died. It’s a beautiful thing because —” Gary wells up. The silence feels sacred. “In some ways, that final year for Mac was one of the greatest years of his life because of what he accomplished.”  Mac was diagnosed almost in tandem with Gary’s wife, Moira Harris, who is now in remission from Stage 3 breast cancer. After six years of supporting family through surgeries and treatment, Gary is sharing Mac’s music with new audiences and putting pen to paper on his own journey. “It’s really the story of my son and the family and dealing with all of it,” Gary says of his upcoming release “Graceful Warrior,” a follow-up to his debut New York Times bestseller, “Grateful American.” “It’s been a hard couple of years navigating through the stuff that bubbles up just at the drop of a hat,” he says. “You have one thought and boom, there you are in the middle of it.” Gary tears up, recalling the year he surprised Mac with a professionally recorded version of a song he had written during college. “It was just a rough little recording of him singing and playing,” Gary says of the initial inspiration. After convincing two musician buddies to preserve “Eyes of Marigold” in the studio, Gary presented it to Mac. “I have a great picture of him with earphones in his ears in a restaurant when we took him out for his birthday dinner … with this gigantic smile on his face, listening to his song.” I know I’m just barely scratching the surface on Gary’s inner wellspring, but it almost seems there was a greater force at play when Gary took on his role in “Forrest Gump.” Somehow, Lieutenant Dan’s impassioned outcry on the boat feels like an honest prayer from humanity’s depths, giving voice to our struggles as he screams at the heavens. “You call this a storm? … I’m right here. Come and get me! You’ll never sink this boat!” The Nashville chapter Ten years after its founding in 2011, the Gary Sinise Foundation relocated its headquarters from Los Angeles to Franklin, Tennessee. Gary’s family followed.  “I stopped acting at the end of 2019 because things were getting so tough,” he explains. “I just needed to step away from it … and then I started to realize I don’t really want to live in California anymore.” The move hinged on his daughter Sophie agreeing to move from SoCal with her three kids. Soon, Gary’s daughter, Ella, relocated from Virginia to the Volunteer State. Another driver was the security in knowing that his wealth would stretch further in a state with no state income tax (and less of the “dopey things they do out there”), plus gas that’s routinely $3 cheaper than it is in LA. “I have a lot of friends in Nashville,” he adds. “I’ve always loved Tennessee.” The whole family, including Gary’s six grandchildren, is planning a getaway this summer. It’s their first vacation since Mac died. Gary’s face lights up when he tells me, “I can’t get enough of my grandkids and daughters.” A morning fit for reflection I’m convinced that some of the most fascinating people think their personal lives deserve no headlines. “It’s not that interesting, quite frankly. You know, I don’t do that much,” Gary says with a smile. I don’t believe that for a second. “I’ll get up at about 5 o’clock every day,” he shares. Usually, he gets straight to responding to emails, but if he’s looking for something a little more analog, he heads outside to walk the hills of Tennessee. “It’s peaceful, and there are deer, turkeys … It’s really a beautiful area that we’re in and I get my exercise that way,” he says.   I can’t imagine doing this before dawn without coffee, but Gary skips the hard stuff. “I found out that my gallbladder was shot … I was like, okay, I’ll get rid of coffee, I’ll get rid of alcohol, I’ll stop eating spicy food, you know, whatever it was.” He occasionally treats himself to decaf or Ryze superfood mushroom coffee, but he knows his limits. “As soon as I have a cup of caffeine, it’ll be back to three or four a day,” he says. Still, he adds, “I do like this sort of ritual of having something warm in the morning.”  He tells me he eats yogurt with “this sort of cereal and fruit,” and I gently tease him for sounding MAHA with this and his mushroom drinks. “You know, a couple days a week … I’ll do like steak and eggs,” he finally admits. “I’ll go protein, like heavy protein.” There it is. Spirit-boosting work “I’m always working,” Gary says, confirming my hunch. He’s the kind of person who recharges his batteries by serving others. “Years ago I used to try to play golf.”  The Lt. Dan Band is currently set to head out on tour, eventually stopping by the Opry in September in salute to our nation’s heroes. “I’m an actor who happens to have a band,” Gary says. “I’m not a songwriter or anything like that. I play other people’s music; we do some of Mac’s songs.” Even though the band was founded to honor veterans, it also serves as a creative outlet for Gary’s many talents.    Courtesy of Gary Sinise “Playing in the band is about the mission work that I’m doing,” he explains. “I pay everybody else; I play for free. Even though that’s part of the mission, my sort of relaxing enjoyment is to get up there with my bass and play these songs for people and lift them up. I get a lot of joy out of that.” A legacy of service I catch up with Gary at a local firehouse just outside of Franklin, where he’s serving Martin’s Bar-B-Que to first responders alongside his longtime friend Joseph Carr, founder and CEO of Josh Cellars. This is clearly not Gary’s first rodeo on baked beans duty. But even though the Gary Sinise Foundation has served nearly 1.5 million meals of appreciation, Gary zhuzhes up the chafing dish and loads up plates like he baked the beans himself.    Lauren Bair But it’s really not about the food or leveraging America 250 for the brand. “This is what we do every day of the year at the Gary Sinise Foundation,” he says. “The food is great, but the message of appreciation and remembrance is really what this program is all about.”  It’s a perfect sunny day. Gary makes himself available for photos with each firefighter and rallies everyone for seconds. The firefighters assure me they never eat like this (usually it’s pizza or takeout). They’re gifted full-fledged catering, maybe once every two years. I hear we’re lucky the siren didn’t go off before everyone got fed. Still in his apron, Gary ribs me about sneaking a glamor shot of the banana pudding. “What about the beans!” he laughs. If you remember those old Bush’s commercials, we got some beautiful bean footage before the beans ran out. Gary’s staff alerts him to the fact that his servings were extra large today. Gary jokes back, “We’re outta beans! My team has totally failed!” He has everyone in the station laughing. “Service is a great healer,” Gary says. “I would recommend it to anybody when you’re going through a tough time.” He’s been doing this for decades. Unlike other stars chasing photo ops, there’s no question his dedication comes from the heart. I ask if anything changed when his wife and son were in treatment. He says helping others renewed his spirit.  “[I’d] come back from a trip where I’m just watching kids jump up and down, and spouses who have deployed service members overseas, and they’re worried about them, and they’re smiling,” he says. “I would always come back nourished and energized to continue the fight.” “When your heart is broken over something, you know how it makes you feel when you lift somebody else up,” he explains. “When you put your arms around them, you lift them up, and you see the smile. You forget about your own broken heart for a while. I never stopped doing the mission work throughout the entire painful period of fighting for my son. He loved that I was out there on the road, helping families of our fallen heroes, and helping our wounded through difficult times.” It really seems like Gary’s operating on another level, spiritually, holding vigil for people exactly where they are. He’s living his legacy. I can’t help but think of Lieutenant Dan on the dock, joining Forrest on the shrimp boat. “I told you if you were ever a shrimp boat captain, that I’d be your first mate,” he says. “Well here I am. I am a man of my word.”