Veteran leadership is the answer
Let’s face one simple fact. Government is inefficient, slow to decide and even slower to act. So, bearing that in mind, why on earth is the veteran community waiting for Government leadership instead of veteran leadership to fix their problems?
It’s not going to happen and it will never meet everyone’s expectations. The expectations’ part is interesting because what does the veteran community expect? I personally don’t think the veteran community even knows what it wants or is honest enough to admit that what it needs is a new sense of purpose through what seems like meaningless employment in comparison to serving in the military.
In recent years, the general public has been sympathetic and politicians generally make all of the ‘correct’ somber comments using words like sacrifice whilst paying their respect and acknowledging current and former members of the military for cheap political point scoring. At the end of the day though, veterans need to stop looking and expecting political leadership and action. As hard as it is for everyone to accept, it’s not coming.
The answer is that the veteran community needs to start leading itself. Not in that sort of depressing echo chamber of social media where misery loves company, but that real kind of leadership where people are held to account and told what to do. That meaningful kind of leadership that speaks truth to power and takes action for the greatest good for the greatest number. Veterans need to stop looking for handouts and start reaching down to one another for the hand up. And the best form that this can take is employment opportunities. Employment brings with it what veterans are missing the most. Purpose, comradeship and a sense of responsibility.
Veterans need to stop thinking that they’re special
When people enter the armed services and conduct their basic training, they’re essentially ‘programmed’ to start thinking a certain way. One of those is to start viewing civilians as less than themselves and as if the civilian community owes a debt of gratitude. This is plainly wrong and underpins a big part of the veteran community’s dilemma. That dilemma can be summarized as an over inflated idea of entitlement and self-importance. I know that is a contentious thing to suggest, but after 25 years of full-time military service, consisting of numerous operational deployments on combat operations throughout the Middle East and South East Asia, I’m comfortable to stand by this opinion.
Something that would go a long way is for veterans to start demonstrating some humility. This idea that the ‘modern veteran’ stood on the wall and repelled invaders to protect our lands and families as they sheltered behind us is a fantasy. The current situation in Afghanistan demonstrates this idea that the Taliban, or any other recent would be enemy, doesn’t have the reach or capability to threaten modern Western civilization in any meaningful form other than isolated terrorist events. Although each individual terrorist event is tragic, in the grand scheme of the developed world, the casualty numbers are insignificant and damage done irrelevant. The stock market continues to trade, banks continue to operate and our children continue to go to school while we toil at our trade and pay tax.
Unfortunately, in good faith, two generations (serving prior to 2001 and enlisting post September 11) of servicemen and women have believed our political and military leaders since 2001 that continuous and sustained conventional military operations was the answer to what was essentially a series of consequences to poor foreign policy. For the modern veteran to hang their hat on what is essentially a very small chapter of their overall life could almost be described as intellectually lazy and infantile.
Just like the high school athlete that can’t let go of their ‘glory days’ as a teenager, the current veteran would do well to start exercising some level of humility and keep their period of service in perspective.
The reality is, very few actually did a great deal of the heavy lifting or actual killing.
Veterans have lost perspective of their situation
Within the churn of our current 24-hour media cycle, you don’t need to go far to find an article focused on a veteran who has some how been let down by ‘the system’. Often, the actual veterans that have been let down are the ones that are already victims of suicide and or currently homeless or incarcerated. Nobody in their right mind would dispute that the correlation between substance abuse, suicide, mental health issues and difficulty at reintegration into communities for veterans is real and concerning. That is a given fact and undisputed. The one thing that is lacking from the conversation however is gratitude.
To be a modern veteran in our developed first world society, with all of our modern comforts and systems of support, is a privilege (would you rather be an injured veteran for the other-side?) Even as flawed as our relevant Veterans Affairs departments systems and bureaucratic processes maybe, nobody could say that there isn’t genuine help available and sincere social or political concern. Ask just about any sensible regular citizen of their level of respect and gratitude towards current and former servicemen and women and the consistent consensus is one of gratitude.
Veterans would serve themselves well to start reciprocating this gratitude back towards the society and members of it that support them rather than having a sense of entitlement with their hand out or chip on their shoulder as though they’re owed something.
The vast majority of the struggles that veterans face is exactly the same that every day citizens do. Secure housing, consistent income, access to health care and education, consistent and meaningful employment. The list goes on. The only difference is that a good portion of the veteran community have the expectation that all of these things are someone else’s problem to solve. After a period of employment where meals and housing were provided, health care readily available and the comfort of mandated routine and a regular secure income, I find it hard to believe that there isn’t almost a learnt helplessness in the veteran community.
Veterans need to stop seeing themselves as victims
Throughout our careers in the military, either short or long, we were inculcated with a certain set of values that were essentially focussed on having a bias for action and being aggressive. Why then is it that a significant number of the veteran community see themselves as either victims of circumstance or of a system that has cast them aside when their use has expired? The cold hard reality is that all of our experiences within the safe confines of the military will come to an end. Either quickly or over a prolonged period. At the end, whether it be voluntary or not, it is important for all of us to leave facing forward with courage and a plan for the future. Those who seem to struggle the most are the ones who don’t.
Group dynamics can be easily explained as having the Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing stages. The final stage of group dynamics that often isn’t discussed in detail is the mourning phase. This is where either collectively or individually the loss of the group is mourned if not grieved by individuals as they reflect. This is at the core of the problems veterans face today. Look at nearly any veteran’s social media feed and you will see posts, pictures or content that is reminiscing about their previous service. Think back to the analogy of the high school athlete reliving the glory days and it should start to make sense.
Social media and the very convenience of remaining connected with people is in fact an additional part of the problem veterans face. A constant feed of reminders of their past. The funny thing is that the past is always viewed through rose tinted glasses by the veteran community. Even the bad times are viewed in retrospect as being some of the best times of our lives. The ‘why’ to that is due to the shared suffering or bond forged through shared hardship with former comrades. So as a veteran is trying to take steps forward, they have one foot stuck in the past.
One of the best things the veteran community could do is either remove or temper their use of social media.
Veterans are happy to serve their country but not their community
The concept of ‘service to the nation’ is one that needs to reviewed and reconsidered by the veteran community. The reality is that we have or were employed and financially compensated for our time, effort and hardships. Perhaps the ‘service’ piece is nested in our individual reasons for seeking initial enlistment. A sense of duty or obligation perhaps, but at the end of the day, did you do it for free due to a sense of duty for the greater good or was there some form of incentive to enlisting?
If we are all honest, the answer would be a combination of all, but certainly a significant amount of our reasoning was due to the financial security and opportunities for the future military enlistment provides. We need to keep this concept of ‘service’ in perspective. Genuine ‘service’ to the nation looks like voluntary service to our community.
For a demographic that sees themselves being owed something by society and the community, I wonder how many veterans actually volunteer their time serving the community in some way?
For veterans that have the benefits of a permanent impairment payment as an income need to start serving their immediate communities and those who are less fortunate than themselves. Whether it being delivering meals to the elderly as a volunteer or serving meals to the homeless, the veteran community must give very serious consideration to start giving back. Regardless of how inconvenient it may be or what form it may take, by volunteering as part of a group that serves people less fortunate, veterans would learn to demonstrate both humility and gratitude.
Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and go!