Dan joined the military upon his graduation from high school and served in the Army National Guard for 38 years. He started as an enlisted soldier and was promoted to the rank of Staff Sergeant prior to attending Officer Candidate School, from which he graduated at the top of his class and subsequently rose to the rank of Captain. During his time in the Army, he was deployed overseas three times, to Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. While serving in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, Dan was detached to the 130th Combat Engineer Battalion from Puerto Rico. He performed route clearance missions, which entailed searching the streets of Baghdad for Improvised Explosive Devices (IED’s).

Dan also served as the Commander of the 246th Fire Fighting Detachment at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Apache in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012, leading his soldiers in over 300 outside the wire missions. Dan was the recipient of many commendations for his service, most notably the Combat Action Badge and the Bronze Star. During his deployments overseas, Dan developed his own community outreach programs, in which he solicited the support of his friends and family back home to assist him in providing food, clothing, shoes, and toys to the poverty-stricken local villagers. He was honorably discharged from the Army National Guard in 2023.