Expanding the definition of Service

It is widely stated that while our active duty and reserve personnel are the key individuals within the military ecosystem, without the other supporting entities, they would be unable to do their jobs at the high-level Americans expect. Additionally, it is often recognized that military training is some of the best life training for discipline, self-reliance, and decision making under pressure. But with only 29% of Americans ages 17-24 eligible for military service, not only do we lose access to these individuals’ other talents but they lose access to the life training opportunities available. Expanding the definition of service can create the opportunity for all Americans, regardless of skill set, interest area, or physical capability, to serve our nation and to benefit from the lessons this service experience brings.

There is a need to a) create a culture that shares this message and b) create structures to support it. How do we accomplish both?

First, we would need to develop a centralizing structure that recognizes local, state, national, and international service. Structures already exist within government that can collect, organize, and label this data. Second, we would need to create a number of service positions with differing commitment timing. Specifically, this includes analogous programs to reserve units, developing a second responders program, and intermittent volunteer opportunities through private or public programs.

By tangibly recognizing service to the nation, socializing the need for it and the benefit of it, as well as making it easy to participate, a national service program office could be established and supported within the DoD to ensure that all Americans have an opportunity to share their expertise with the nation and ultimately improve national readiness.

Photo by Daniel Tausis  John Middelkoop  Holly Mindrup

Military Suicide

Flag in field

We have come a long way in talking about this understated elephant in the room. Yet we have not found a solution. I used to say that our military personnel risk life and limb in theater (on the battlefield). I have revised my statement to say:

Our warfighters risk life, limb, and mind.

As a psychologist, this is not only an area of concern but it is also an area of expertise for me. My last billet was under personnel and readiness and this is the segment of military that focuses on these issues. Though I worked more on the readiness side, there is a reason these two subsections are connected. ‘Readiness’ is not just about being physically capable anymore, it is as much about being mindful of one’s surroundings, capable of making difficult and complex decisions under stress, and protective of the mind’s limitations.

There is no question that the services are taking this issue seriously. There is no question that society is doing the same. Sadly, there is also no question that we are not winning this battle of the mind and it is costing us dozens of servicemembers…daily.

How do we change course?

We need to take what is called a multi-dimensional approach to understanding why this continues to happen in such numbers and the pattern of events, thoughts, and feelings that lead up to suicide. These are not new ways of looking at this issue but what is new is recognizing that a) we have a self-selecting group that enters the military, b) we have traditionally looked at how to treat our personnel after they return from theater, and c) we focus on the individual when perhaps we need to consider the system. There are many avenues that have yet to be thoroughly researched or implemented including preparatory mind exercises to reduce the onset or severity of PTSD and structures that can be put in place following service to ensure that our vets are receiving the same daily life support to which they become accustomed during their active duty time. It can be significantly disconcerting to come back to a society so unaware of the realities of what our servicemembers experience.

We can create readiness programs that focus on mind insulation and preparation.

We can create support structures post-service that provide a continuation of the design they are used to.

We can improve our transition preparation and process to ensure success!

No one avenue will help. Rather, it needs to be a combination of assets, preparation, tools, options, and ultimately, continued teamwork within the military community to support all our active duty, reservist, and veteran defenders.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Modeling Collective Brilliance

In my observations of and time spent working with the military, I am consistently impressed by the collective and pervasive ability of service members to, actually or metaphorically, duct tape anything together and make it work.

Ingenuity is a hallmark of the services.

But there are two other common mantras (I suppose I should acknowledge here that in fact there are many more as well): ‘Don’t reinvent the wheel’ and ‘Teamwork matters.’

All of these ideas are employed in the Veterans’ support team in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This may be a small town, but it boasts an extensive decorated military heritage and a huge active support team for vets. I had the honor of getting to meet and talk with many of the members of this exceptional city and learn about not only the individual programs that they each run but also about how they work together to meet all needs for all vets. These men and women represent what I call ‘collective brilliance.’

As I come out of military readiness, the mantras above resonate with me, guide me, shape how I look at problems. Rarely is it the case that money is the sole element required to solve a problem. Even more rare is the probability that someone hasn’t already solved it. Rather, it is most often the case that some person or some group have solved either the exact problem you’re facing or at least a portion of it already. When this is the case, it is cheaper, easier, and far more effective to simply connect the dots than it is to spend more money solving the same problem…yet again.

I call this process: Find Brilliance; Repeat.

This idea is what has driven me to traverse our country. It is my hypothesis that we have all the talent, ideas, programs, and examples across the amazing, large, exceptional country of ours that we need to solve all of our national issues. We simply need to find those that have solved pieces of each issue and connect them.

Bowling Green, KY has demonstrated how teamwork matters for true change. They have proven that federal dollars can be used to pay for facilitative actions (like a coordination person or team) and combined with local programs that know their residents and needs best. It sounds simple in concept but too often in federal work we aim to create large-scale, costly solutions because we focus on budgets, politics, and solving problems in Washington while unintentionally missing the local capabilities.

BGKY helps confirm my belief that government operates at its best when it acts as a facilitative entity that helps coordinate local brilliance and share models of success across states.

Thank you to everyone BGKY – you guys embody my campaign motto: Unity Strength Action. Thoughts and ideas are great but if and only if they result in action. You all are exemplary.

Disclaimer: As always, interviewees provide information, not endorsements.