For Navy veteran Brooks Herring, purpose has never been a vague idea. Give him a mission, and he will pour everything into it. Take it away, and he feels lost. Today, the Nashville singer-songwriter plays close to 300 shows a year, and nearly every one is a way of staying in the fight for the veterans and military families he loves. "You give me a mission, and I execute it," he says.
That instinct to serve started early, in Conway, South Carolina, where Herring and his older brother, Paul, spent their days in the woods wearing their dad's old Air Force uniforms and playing soldier. As a high school freshman, he joined JROTC, as did his schoolmate Chad Owens. Herring was a sophomore when the September 11 attacks unfolded on a classroom television. Most of his friends were seniors, and he knew they were about to enlist. "I knew that all my friends were fixing to go," he remembers. "They were going to head off and fight, and I was going to be stuck there for a couple of years waiting on my turn."
When his turn came, he joined the Navy with his sights set on becoming a SEAL. A color vision deficiency ended that contract early, and he became a weapons specialist. Chad joined the Army and deployed to Iraq. When he came home on mid-tour leave, Herring, who was stationed stateside, went to see him. Two weeks later, Chad was killed in Baghdad, where he saved several lives before giving his own. "I felt so useless," he says. "I felt so guilty. I felt I wasn't doing my part."
So he went looking for a mission. When his command asked who wanted to go to Iraq, Herring shot his hand up, thinking he had to be first. "I was literally the only person with my hand up," he says. He deployed to Iraq and Africa. Every time, he came home. Instead of relief, he carried a question that would follow him for years. "I just never felt like I did enough."
A $60 pawn shop guitar from El Paso, Texas, ended up with him during his deployments. He bought it for something to do overseas, nothing more. "It wasn't like, oh, this is something that'll help me heal," he says. But in a bunker in Iraq, he started writing songs.
When Herring left the Navy in 2011, he felt like a man without a compass. The structure, the orders, and the sense of being needed were gone. "I felt like I lost my purpose. I lost my mission," he says. Herring took a civilian job with the Army in Afghanistan, started writing and posting songs again, and slowly felt purpose returning. Still, when he finally came home for good and the VA offered to pay for his education, he faced a question he had never been asked. "I volunteered for the military and I had been given a mission," he says. "And now someone was telling me that I get to choose the mission. I didn't know what to do with my life. I had no idea."
What he chose was service of a different kind. He had known wounded veterans who thrived and others who struggled, and he wanted to be part of the difference. He became a physical therapist, earning his doctorate at the University of South Carolina, and founded Run Phase, a nonprofit built on a simple idea. Most veterans were rehabilitated just enough to walk and care for themselves, he says, but many wanted more. "They wanted to run again," Herring says. "They wanted to work out. They wanted to lift and play sports and do things with their family."
Music kept pulling at him, though. In college, he played drums for a country musician, and whenever the musician took a break, Herring would step out from behind the kit, pick up a guitar, and sing a few songs. Soon venues wanted to book him as a singer, for three hours at a time. "I only knew three songs," he recalls. "So I better get on that." He put in the work, and by the end of the summer break he was playing five, six, and seven shows a week.
Then, in March 2020, he attended a CreatiVets retreat in Nashville, a program that uses songwriting to support veterans, just days before the world shut down. "I didn't know that songwriting could be a profession," he says. "It was like a blind man being able to see for the first time."
His two worlds, healing and music, finally met, and he did not have to choose between them. He finished his doctorate and released his first single, "Why Me," a song about survivor's guilt, the loneliness of coming home when friends did not, and the gap between being called a hero and feeling unseen. In January 2023, he moved to Nashville, where he went on to earn a songwriting degree from Belmont University. Since then, Herring has become a fixture among the organizations that bring veterans and music together, including Operation Encore, Operation Song, Guitars for Vets, and Memories of Honor. In 2026, he was inducted into the South Carolina Military Veterans Hall of Fame.
Herring sings for Gold Star families who have lost a loved one in military service. "I could never feel all of that pain, but I feel some of that pain," he says. "At the same time, it is such a blessing to be able to sing with them, sing for them, write songs for them, and honor their memory." The reward often comes after the last song, when a stranger walks up or a message arrives from someone who found something in the music. "That means more than any paycheck ever could," he says. "I heal a little bit more every time something like that happens."
For all that he has given, Herring is candid about his doubts. Audiences may see a confident performer on stage, but the reality is different. "I have very little confidence in myself," he admits. "I struggle every day with wondering if I'm enough." Ask him about fame, and his answer is quick. "I feel like being a star without being able to serve would just leave me empty again. I don't really care about the fame. I want the platform."
He pictures a much bigger platform, one that brings healing music to "tens of thousands at a time instead of tens at a time. I want to leave a legacy of servant leadership," he says.
I was lucky to hear Brooks sing at the Boot Bash for Memories of Honor, and his performance was moving. He is genuine, his music is authentic, and you do not have to be connected to the military to appreciate it. If you ever get the chance to hear him live, take it.
Follow Brooks Herring on Instagram at @brooksherringmusic or visit brooksherringmusic.com.