Tim McGraw has had a big fall. On Oct. 18, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. On Nov. 18, he takes the stage at the CMA Awards, which air at 8 p.m. ET on ABC with Lainey Wilson as host.
This week, though, his thoughts turn to family. On Veterans Day last year, Tim shared a short video showing the faces of relatives who wore the uniform. “Honoring a few of my family members who’ve served, and all those who’ve dedicated their lives to protecting our freedom,” he wrote. “Your courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
The list runs deep for a kid from Start, Louisiana, a farm town he once described as “just a caution light and a cotton gin.” Taste of Country reported in 2015 that his grandfather served in World War II and an uncle served in Vietnam. “My sister’s a veteran of the first Gulf War, my uncle’s a Vietnam veteran,” Tim said in a 2024 interview reported by Backstage Country.
That family history is part of why he has spent years working with Operation Homefront, a group that gives mortgage-free homes to military families. “The most meaningful thing I get is these guys telling me they got some foundation for their families,” he told Taste of Country.
Tim’s own YouTube channel shared a short film about some of those families.
See families who received homes through Tim’s work with Operation Homefront
Tim came close to wearing the uniform himself. He told the story in February on The Tim Ferriss Show podcast. In college, he took a military science class taught by an Army captain he remembers as Captain Whitehead, who ran the ROTC program. The other students were ROTC cadets, and at the end of the course they voted Tim their platoon leader.
Captain Whitehead decided Tim belonged in the Marines. He kept taking him to the recruiting office, and Tim filled out the paperwork. Then he sold nearly everything he owned. “I had my guitar, one suitcase and my Marine paperwork sitting on my dresser,” he said.
He went to sleep planning to choose in the morning. When he woke up, he tore up the papers, threw them away and bought a Greyhound bus ticket to Nashville.
About 15 years later, Tim played a packed show at a military base in San Diego. He looked down and saw Captain Whitehead standing at the front of the stage. They talked after the show, and the captain had one thing to say. “You would’ve been a good Marine.”
Right after telling that story, Tim shared who in his family did go. “My sister was in the Army, she was Army Intelligence,” he said. “Cousins, uncles, so I’ve got a long history of military family.”
Army Intelligence soldiers gather and study information that helps commanders plan. Tim did not say which of his sisters it was, and he did not go into her work. He did make clear how much respect he has for people who serve. “There’s nobody better in my mind than those guys and gals,” he said in that 2024 interview.
When he was inducted in October, Tim fought back tears as he thanked the people who got him there. NBC’s TODAY show shared a look at his night.
Watch Tim McGraw’s Country Music Hall of Fame night
On Nov. 18, he walks onto the CMA stage as a Hall of Famer. Before that comes Veterans Day, and a sister whose Army job he talked about on a podcast this year.