Wesley Durden, to suicide, shortly after Rush had trained him to compete on the TLC show “Next Great Baker” in 2011. The worst was after Rush lost his mentee, Sgt. I would cook, and I would cook, and I sometimes would make a six-course meal without even realizing it.” “I would just do it on a normal basis, and when I was feeling down or depressed or off my game sometimes, I would just go in the kitchen, pull out stuff and I would just start cooking. “I didn’t realize cooking was my therapy until I actually realized cooking was my therapy,” said Rush, whose own separation from the military was aided by his time in a unit at Virginia’s Fort Belvoir for transitioning wounded warriors. He dealt with the raw physical and mental wounds of those experiences the only way he knew how - by cooking. Rush said that while in service, he was part of convoys that came under fire while traveling through combat zones, among other experiences. He was in the Army for 23 years and deployed to Iraq before medically retiring in 2016. And while that part of his internet fame comes with a lot of responsibility, he said, it’s also “pretty cool.” Rush never expected a big public platform, but one month in, he’s taking advantage of it to advocate for causes he’s been passionate about for years: food, exercise and veterans’ issues. He’s a little low on sleep these days trying to respond to everyone. (That’s 25 reps of 315 pounds for each body part and 2,222 push-ups every other day, in case you’re curious.) People want to know what it’s like to cook for President Trump, or Rush’s personal secret to staying so buff.

“I get hundreds of emails or texts or pings a day,” he said in a recent interview, hours after receiving a gift from Arnold Schwarzenegger and an invitation to appear on a show with fitness guru Billy Blanks. But after a photo of him cooking outside the White House in a chef’s coat rolled up over 24-inch biceps went viral last month, the 45-year-old retired Army master sergeant is having a hard time staying under the radar - maybe for good.

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