Lauren Burns and Don Feeney: The Story Behind Stolen, Rescue, Faith, and Healing
In this episode of Oscar Mike Radio, I welcome back Lauren Burns and sit down with a very special guest, former Delta Force operator Don Feeney, for a powerful conversation about rescue, survival, faith, and what happens after the darkest chapters of our lives.
Lauren’s story began when she was kidnapped as a child from Dallas and taken to Jordan. That experience changed the course of her life and left wounds that took years to understand, process, and heal.
Now, Lauren is preparing to share her story in her upcoming book, Stolen, releasing September 8th.
The Rescue Mission That Brought Lauren Home
What makes this conversation especially powerful is hearing the story from two very different perspectives. Lauren remembers the experience as the child who needed to be brought home. Don remembers it as one of the men determined to make that happen. Don shares details of the covert rescue mission he carried out with teammates JD and Dave, including how they tracked Lauren through a school bus and eventually extracted her across the Allenby Bridge into Israel. Hearing Lauren and Don reflect on the same events decades later was extraordinary. One lived the fear, uncertainty, and trauma of being taken. The other carried the responsibility of helping bring her home.
What Happens After the Rescue?
But this episode is about much more than the rescue itself. Lauren and Don also talk about what came afterward. For Lauren, being physically rescued was only the beginning of a much longer journey. Healing required confronting the emotional impact of what had happened and deciding how she wanted that experience to shape the rest of her life.
A central part of that journey has been faith. Both Lauren and Don share how faith carried them through difficult moments and helped give meaning to experiences that were not easy to understand.
For Lauren, faith has become part of a larger mission: taking a painful chapter of her life and turning it into something that can give hope to others.
Turning Survival Into Purpose
That is what stayed with me most after this conversation.
Surviving something difficult does not automatically erase the pain. Healing takes time. It takes courage. And sometimes, it takes deciding that your story can become something more than what happened to you. Lauren is doing exactly that. Her upcoming book, Stolen, gives her the opportunity to tell her story in her own voice and share what she learned about survival, healing, faith, and finding purpose after trauma.
This episode is not simply about a rescue mission. It is about what happens when people survive the unimaginable and then choose what to do with the life that follows.
Lauren, thank you for trusting me and the Oscar Mike Radio audience with your story once again.
Don, thank you for sharing the remarkable perspective of the men who were committed to one mission: bringing Lauren home.
Learn more about Lauren and order Stolen at: https://www.laurenburns.net/about
We are Mission in Flight!
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