Tag: Service

Transitional Fitness

The whole of fitness is underdescribed in its entirety when we transition from Chapter 2 to Chapter 3. We are told to stay in shape; use it or lose it. A lot of us stay in shape. Pear is a shape, right? But are we doing everything we can to maintain our health? We don’t need to be able to pass the new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) or start up a Combat Fitness Gym, but we do need to take care of our whole health.

An article in Medical News Today describes health as “… physical, mental, and social wellbeing, and as a resource for living a full life.” Nutrition, exercise, proper medical screenings, hydration, proper use of prescribed medicines and supplements, mental health, hygiene, and social engagement are all part of this. In Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, we are taught all these things so it should be easy to maintain them in Chapter 3. If we don’t, why?

In Chapter 1, our parents, teachers, coaches, and clergy teach us the basics of what we need to know. Parents teach us about proper hygiene and health. Shower every day, brush your teeth after every meal, clean under your fingernails, wash your clothes, pick up your room, put on a hat and coat if it’s cold outside, etc. All these things, which we ignore, until they yell at us, form the basis which gets built upon by others in this and Chapter 2.

Coaches teach us how to build muscle and endurance through instruction and competitive sports. They reinforce hygiene making us change our clothes before and after the gym and have us shower so we dont funkify the hallways. Clergy help us with our mental health, teaching us about faith, calm, love thy neighbor but not his wife, be honest, have integrity, be good, help others. Teachers tell us about biology, the health of the human body, what food and water does for us and about illness and disease.

What do we learn in Chapter 2? Get off my grass! That’s what you should have learned Warrior breed. We take the basics we learned in Chapter 1 and fine-tune them, make them all mesh together to make us a high-speed, low-drag, MRE-fueled, beer-cooled, lover of two(men) and killer of commies. We learn that to be a good Warrior we must apply all these things with vigor or jeopardize the mission. Don’t shower and the enemy will smell you. Don’t pick up after yourself and the enemy will track you. Don’t maintain your endurance and the enemy will catch you. Don’t maintain your strength and the enemy will kill you. Don’t love thy neighbor and your troops won’t follow you. Take a knee, face out, drink water, change your socks.

Phew, that’s done. No more early morning PT. I love PT but the military sure has a way to suck the joy out of fun things. So, we work out a bunch less, celebrate with adult beverages while swapping war stories with fellow Warriors and think we are in the clear, maybe with some bumps and bruises. But hey, we are still young…right now. Eventually, we are in damage control mode wondering how we got this beer belly, can only do 20 painful pushups, creek and moan when we get out of the chair, and wonder why people at the bar laugh at us before we tell the funny story. Ouch, MEDIC!

What we haven’t done is use all of our skills, maybe at a slower pace, to maintain our health. So, what to do? Keep moving the day we get out, set up and maintain regular medical appointments, understand we won’t burn as many calories as before and can eat less, continue to help others, be kind and find something that occupies our mind when not working or with family. Let’s break each one down.

Keep moving. You don’t need to be Ranger Joe anymore, doing 2 PT sessions every day lifting massive weights and running so hard you blow snot bubbles down to your knees. But you need to work your cardio and keep your muscles working. Walk your dog a couple of miles every day. If you don’t have one, rescue one. Doing a good thing, saving money by rescuing vs buying, and is great for your mental health. Bam, 3 dead birds. Buy a used treadmill on Craigslist. It doesn’t have to be the top of the line and neither do you. Walk the neighbor’s dog, being kind and fit all at once. Work your muscles by doing your own landscaping. It will save money and use muscles that are more than just pushing weights in a gym. Volunteer at a food shelf. Moving cases of food around while helping thy neighbor who really needs it, win-win.

Medical screening. Don’t start on how the VA sucks, I get it. Comp and Pen sucks and so do some clinics. But some are good, too. The point…document your health, get screening for your ailments, referrals for specialist stuff. Seek a job with health benefits so you don’t have to rely on VA. Use TRICARE if you can. I know, the Marine Corps broke me, they should fix me. But going down the road of righteousness at the expense of your health may be a plan worth re-thinking. Don’t give up, but don’t throw the big fat baby out with the bathwater.

Mental health. This needs an entire subdivision (installment). Treat it like physical health if it is broken. Stop thinking civilian Doctors can’t help you. They can and will; trust my crazy and counseled brain. But it is more than treating PTSD etc. It is about being positively, socially engaged with other humans, having a job to motivate us and challenge our brains, loving another human or dog or stupid cat, helping our fellow man to give us faith in ourselves and others. It is so many things, easily done. It is not ruminating that Chapter 3 sucks, non-Warriors don’t understand, Chapter 3 is meaningless, I am meaningless. Sounds kind of dumb when you see it written down, doesnt it.

So, let’s maintain our health, wholly. It’s not just pushups, situps, and a 2-mile run. It is maintaining the whole of our self.

Sergeant Major is done talking now. You can open your soup cooler and help your fellow Warriors with examples of what you do.

—SGM DTB—

Leave the Attitude at CIF

Are we failing transition? The narrative and rhetoric say yes. We hear that Warriors are committing suicide at high numbers, under-employed, homeless, struggling with PTSD for life, failing at relationships, and shunning outside interaction. Is all of this true and who is actually failing at transition, the military or the Warrior?

In 3 Stages of Dependency, we talk about how the military does it best to remodel us into what they need us to be for the accomplishment of the mission, then in a few days, with little fanfare, send us off to figure out what we are going to do. One of the problems here is not teaching us what skills, experiences, beliefs, and attributes we should take with us and which other ones we should leave behind or remodel for Chapter 3.

There are many wonderful attributes that the military has embued in us; strong work ethic, fast learner, loyalty, integrity, communication, leadership, and teamwork, to name a few. Those are all great things to keep and apply in our pillars of life; family, fun, friends, faith, employment, community, and service. A Warrior, with these attributes, with proper beliefs, is our Nation’s most valuable asset.

As our predecessors from the big wars and service transitioned into Chapter 3, they positively took those attributes and became leaders in many of those pillars; church, business, political and social groups. However, that was a different time, a time of Nationalism (good word back then), where the entire Nation was truly at war, with millions going to war, millions working to support the war effort and everyone being vested in defeating tyranny overseas. We were united and everyone contributed. So, our beliefs were different. More on that soon.

A Warrior with these attributes and the belief that we are here to continue our service of good, hard, honest work as a productive member of society, no different than anyone else and entitled to nothing more than we earn, will stretch the imagination of possible in all aspects of their lives. We can be better employees than those who, on paper, appear more qualified. We will be leaders in our churches, civic groups, Little League coaches shaping our youth, Rotary Clubs and revered walking around town. Not just because we served, but because we served and then positively applied those attributes into our community and life.

Beliefs (aka attitude) in who we are, what we have done and what we should do help shape how we apply our attributes. As my Household 6 (aka spouse, aka commander of my domicile) always reminds me “use your powers for good Superman.” Attributes applied with improper beliefs can be disastrous, divisive and detrimental to us and our community. In talking with a Warrior buddy, an Officer with a distinguished career, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about how you can provide all the resources and skills you want to a Warrior, but if the Warrior has a poor attitude, he will fail. So, what are these beliefs that are detrimental and different than before that are causing the problem? The military gently pounds into us the belief that we are superhuman, above all others except the team, a superior force, not acceptant of failure, and less empathetic. That doesn’t mean we don’t have empathy, just most of the empathy is decided at the strategic level and leaves less room for us to have that or many emotions that don’t serve the greater good. So, this almost turns us into narcissists. As measured by the Psychological Element Scale (PES) newer generations, referred to as the Me Decade, Greed Decade and New Gilded Age, are scoring higher in narcissism and lower in empathy 1 . Combine this with serving in an environment that says you are great, civilians don’t understand because they haven’t served and the advertisement of free chicken everywhere from good-meaning non-profits, and it is a recipe for disaster in transition. Oh, and if you have claimed PTSD with the VA Comp and Pen office, they will give you money for the rest of your life, without question, even though it is a treatable, curable and controllable syndrome, but because you deserve it” I read and hear all the time about Warriors who feel: ” work for idiots who don’t know shit, I managed a squad of Warriors in combat but they won’t let me be in charge of one project, or why can’t I get cheaper tickets for airline flights or how can I get my disability rating raised at the VA, I should be 100% for what I have done. Now, before you get your Ranger panties in a bunch, not everyone is like this. This entire blog is never meant to be always or never, or everyone or no one. Those who don’t fall into these categories or examples, generally don’t have transition issues. Ten’s of millions of Warriors have transitioned sans issue; why some?

According to the narcissism and empathy studies, over the last 10-20 years, the empathy scores have dropped significantly and the narcissism scores have gone up. So, if the military is simply a subset of society, then it only makes sense that those numbers would be reflected in our subset during the transition, particularly for those of the aforementioned generations, yet compounded by service. Those scores equate to higher entitlement. Higher entitlement equates to wanting more for doing less than someone who hasn’t done anything in their life. This hurts the Warrior as he transitions. The Warrior should feel others before self, regardless of position or accomplishments. The Warrior should feel that he must work hard, lead by example and give to others where possible. Confounded with these opposites the Warrior often finds himself lost in transition as he tries to balance the two. What he needed was someone to roll him out of the military attitude, gently, and help him understand that he still needs the attributes, just not the attitude. Someone needed to stop telling him that he was one of only 1% who served and much greater than those who didn’t. While those things might have some validity (because, well, I am awesome) they needed to leave those items as CIF with that dirty canteen. These issues are not a huge deal, for most people in most situations, but for that 1% who are transitioning from the Warrior culture into what they feel is something less, they are problematic.

So, are we failing transition? Yes, some are. the military system is for sure, for these reasons. It must do a better job or it risks being a cause of a National security issue instead of being the solution. We, my brother and sister Warriors, must change our attitude before and as we transition. We can and will do meaningful things with great people and serve the greater good. It is in us. Just leave the attitude at CIF.

—SGM DTB—

3 Stages of Dependency

As I am breaking down the entire life of a Veteran, childhood (Chapter 1), Service (Chapter 2), and post-Service (Chapter 3), so I shall break down each stage using the phases of dependence; totally dependent on others, partially dependent on others, mostly independent. I use the modifiers totally, partially, and mostly against what is normally an absolute state, dependent or independent. I do not believe that it can be an absolute state, either way, except in cases to the extreme left or right of center and likely can not be maintained for long periods with success. So, I will use the modifiers.

When I speak of dependency, I am referring to being dependent upon someone or something to aid in the pillars of life I will explore related to Veterans’ lives; family, fun, friends, faith, employment, community, and service.

In Chapter 1, our childhood, the goal of our parents is to get us through the 3 Stages of Dependency to Chapter 2, to get to the next stage. As we are born, we are totally dependent upon others for success. Success at this stage is simply to live and grow our tiny bones, muscles, and organs. We are totally dependent upon our parents and other technically skilled providers for success. They don’t feed us, we don’t survive. Drs don’t recognize illness, we don’t survive. Teachers don’t educate us, we don’t grow sufficiently for survival. As we reach 15 or 16, we reach a state where we are partially dependent upon others for success. We may now have a job, a license and are educated enough for general survival. We still have a strong need for parents and technically skilled providers like Drs and teachers to help us get to the final stage. But here, we are able to move around, provide some for ourselves and make reasonably good, albeit not experienced decisions. As we hit the stage where we are mostly independent, we have gained some experience in the last stage, gotten smarter, are able to now head out into the world to fend for ourselves, get a job, feed our bones and our minds. Mom, Dad, and the technically skilled providers worked hard to prepare us for the next stage. Note that Mom, Dad, Doc, Teach and Coach were all preparing you for the next stage. Good work Team 1!

In Chapter 2, our Service, the goal of the military process, its leader’s et al, is to get us through the first two stages of dependency as fast as possible so we can spend the rest of the chapter at our peak. As we join the military, we are totally dependent upon others for success. Success, at this stage, is learning all the basic skills of a Warrior. We are totally dependent on the Drill Sergeants and staff to teach us how to shoot, move, communicate and medicate. If they don’t teach us right, we don’t pass to the next stage or if we do, we or a member of our team doesn’t survive. But, they feed, clothe, shelter, train, and provide emotional support for (note I spelled scream at you wrong) you. This prepares us for partial dependence aka going to our first duty station and starting to get the experience needed to apply our newly hammered-into-our-brains skills to. Here we have a chain of command, a Non-commissioned and/or Commissioned Officer to help us take those precious skills and apply them in the real, new world, more training. They are also teaching us about discipline, technical and tactical skills beyond self; how to fight and win. The career path, what we call the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) matters some, as different MOS are more aggressive in their Warrior nature than others. All are important and needed, some demand a different lifestyle. Regardless, with sufficient training, Sarge et al get us to the final stage of dependency in service, the ability to mostly independent, maybe lead others and make decisions at a significant level. Some of us spent 4 years getting to this level of independence, some over 20 years. But note, that this is where the technically skilled providers’ roles are different between Chapters 1 & 2. As a reminder, your parents, coaches, pastors, and Drs were grooming you to get into Chapter 2, whatever that story was going to be. Their entire success was measured by how you did getting into Chapter 2 and surviving. In Chapter 2, Sarge and Sir and Ma’am’s success are ONLY in making you successful in Chapter 2, not growing into Chapter 3. Their success is in making the entire force successful in Chapter 2. Chapter 2 is everything. There is very little thought about helping you be mostly independent in Chapter 3, the post-Service part of your life. Sure, there are some educational aids but most are left for you to figure out once you step into Chapter 3. And as we know, it seems we start each Chapter totally dependent.

So, here we are in Chapter 3, post-service, with a good or bad taste in our mouth about our service; we might be healthy or we might not be. We started out the last two chapters with someone taking care of us, molding us, teaching us; responsible for our success. But wait, who is in charge of that now. Me? Wait, what? Nobody prepared me for this. In Chapter 1, I was built up, taught and successfully released to the next chapter. In Chapter 2, they broke all that down and rebuilt me from the ground up. We will talk later about what they taught us. Now, at the end of Chapter 2, they have released me to the world. The transition took about 3 days on their part. Someone tries to convince us to stay, we say no, it is time, and they teach us how to write a resume, wear a red tie because red means power; how to not curse during an interview, missed that block; how to convert destroy the entire Soviet bloc or kill bad guys into something we can use as an appreciable skill. And go. Seriously, I was trained hard, had years worth of education, residential and online, day after day in the field, living an important culture that shined it’s boots every damn night, ate, drank and bled red, white, blue and different shades of camouflage and spoke acronym as a first language. And some guy in the Central Issue Facility ends my illustrious time in uniform by throwing my horribly dirty, despite never being used, canteen back at me and says square this away hero. And it is off to Camp Living Room, Fort Arm Chair, The Block, Mama’s House. This ought to be easy!!

Until next time.

—SGM DTB—

Introduction to The Warrior Chapters

I decided to start writing this blog to help my brothers and sisters in arms make their way through the next chapter in life. I will explore the life of the Warrior during his (the term his/he etc. are intended to refer to the Warrior, both male, and female, as both are, to simplify the writing) time in Service and after, referring to these different periods as different chapters. Chapter 1 is the Warrior’s youth, before military service. Chapter 2 is the Warrior’s service. Chapter 3 will focus on the Warrior’s life after Service.

This comes from decades of experience as a) the son of a Warrior b) 23 years in service, c) running a Veteran nonprofit for 10 years, and d) being a study of the soul, psyche and interrelationships with the pillars of life; family, fun, faith, friendships, fitness, employment, and community.

I will explore, as my muse, the Veteran, strikes me, how childhood is now compared to 40 years ago and more; the many phases of a Warrior’s career (initial entry, follower, leader) in and out of combat; and the growth as a Veteran taking their continued and proper place back into society as a whole.

This blog is intended to help others as a conversation to have with those who would embark on this life. A conversation can only happen if more than one person speaks, so I ask for the insights, comments, questions, and suggestions from those who would read these words.

It is also intended as an insight into the life of those who choose this path for those who to choose to support them. Our Nation and it’s people generally support those who serve, regardless of the politics, persuasions, and propensities of those who we may not agree with. What we can agree with us that the Warrior who would risk his life is worth understanding.

As the Warrior enters his service, he swears to never leave his brethren behind. The word never is absolute, not variable by nature. This means regardless of your term of service, regardless of your branch, your rank or your religion, race, creed or gender you will not cease in your support. So, in that vein and the words tattooed above my veins “Soldier for Life, ” I will, and I implore you to join in to continue your path, do my best to continue to help those who would choose this life.

This is designed to be a helpful, insightful delve into the Warrior world. It is NOT a place for Facebook rants, slants, divisiveness, slander or general foolishness. This is a place to properly communicate to discuss honorably, fairly and without judgment.

Enjoy,

SGM DTB