Recently I was commenting on a public forum (ok… it was Facebook…) that I would be willing, in a heartbeat, to go back overseas to combat. One of the guys I served with and subsequently work on Veterans issues with asked me something that I honestly had to thinking about; “Why”. I knew I wanted to go back over but I couldn’t exactly nail down the “why”. Why would I want to go back and live through that all [...]
In one of my previous blogs I made the argument that one of the biggest issues transitioning Veterans experience, but really all Veterans regardless of how long they have been out, is a lack of empathy for civilians and all around apathy for when they complain about “their problems”. While at first we try to show understanding, because we know this is how “normal, society driven/controlled” people do it. But when it is just constant bickering, and it seems [...]
One thing I have learned since day one of my enlistment, through all 3 trips to the sandbox, and since becoming a Veteran, is that not everyone in this country follows the maxim of "Support our Troops." As much as I wish the days of the Vietnam era soldiers and Veteran mistreatment-movement was over, I can say from personal experience they are not completely gone, though I do believe we are on the tail end of that mantra. The [...]
Tribal Mentality (Part 3 of 3) In part 1 and 2 I inexhaustibly explained how service in the US Armed Forces builds a quasi belonging to a greater “thing”. It inducts us into the Warrior subculture of the United States and it is something we are all fiercely proud of. The issue comes when we leave the service, and are literally flung to the wind that is civilian society. Cast overboard like a useless broken or extensively used barrel to [...]
Tribal Mentality (Part II), By Dominic Mancuso Previously discussed in Part 1, I described one of the growing reasons I believe military veterans, especially combat veterans, have such a difficult time adjusting to civilian life: The Veteran now finds themselves ripped from their “tribe” and figuratively thrown into the “wild” that is modern civilian America; They have been uprooted, usually very abruptly, from one way of living and dumped back into the civilian population with no-more than a “good luck, [...]
"A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong." ~Tecumseh The number one hardship I hear from my fellow Veterans (especially Combat Veterans), once they have had a few months to attempt reintegration into society, is their loss of camaraderie with those they will now spend their day to day their lives with... Unless they are working in a public servant field, there is no longer the threat of being put in life or death situations creating a [...]
