What does Veterans Day mean to you?
The prevailing narrative seems to be that veterans are broken, that they need our care because of the physical or mental problems they experience. While this is certainly true for some who need our deepest support, there is another level for our veterans and their families that is often overlooked in this time of “thank you for your service.”
I retired after nearly 23 years of service, mostly in Special Operations, and then spent the past 15 years as a professional storyteller, writing and performing plays about our military community and the war in Afghanistan. I learned a lot about how military service is experienced in our country as I toured forty cities, performed in front of thousands, and led talkbacks with civilians and veterans from all walks of life. This is what I learned:
Our veterans and their families have a sense of purpose. They have unique stress-coping skills and the ability to connect across diverse viewpoints and backgrounds that could light the way for our divided, politically consumed nation.
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U.S. military personnel walk on the tarmac of the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition (ADEX) in Seongnam, south of Seoul, on October 18, 2021.
Here are three examples of accomplished leaders currently making an impact on our country.
1. Ben Owen barely entered the service before an injury took him down, resulting in a medical discharge. Homelessness, crime and deep opioid addiction soon followed. Staggering in and out of trap houses in South Memphis, Ben somehow found his way into a 12-step program and escaped South Memphis to get clean, but vowed to return for the forgotten souls he left behind.
Thanks to local judges, law enforcement agencies, and business owners who took an interest in Ben’s mission, he and his wife Jess are currently transforming entire neighborhoods by working with law enforcement and citizens to drive out dealers, gangs, and human traffickers, then transforming South Memphis drug houses into hope houses through his nonprofit We Fight Monsters.
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2. Elisha “Perk” Perkins was an Army communications officer who was deployed to the deadly Korengal Valley of Death in 2011 when her vehicle hit a roadside bomb, ejecting her and killing everyone else. She then faced three separate battles with cancer that nearly killed her each time.
While battling depression and the desire to end her life, she was motivated by a friend to start a nonprofit organization that trained service dogs for veterans, based on her own relationship with a failed duck dog named “Toby”, whom she had successfully trained herself. Today, Perk Pop operates Smoke for Vets. She has provided service dogs to dozens of veterans.
3. Kari Ellis grew up on a Chippewa Indian reservation in Michigan and experienced poverty and hardship from an early age. She fought her way out of a traumatic childhood and married Carl, an Air Force noncommissioned officer. For more than twenty years, Kari kept her small family together while Carl went off to Iraq, Afghanistan and other rough places again and again.
The weight of deployments and medical issues took their toll, and Kari lost her husband to suicide not long after he retired. For a while she returned to the place of despair from which she came. Then, thanks to local neighbors who stuck with her, she emerged as a project manager at our nonprofit Task Force Pineapple, where she manages our plays’ tour stops and connects with hundreds of veterans, fiercely advocating for suicide prevention by telling her story from the stage.
Ben Owen barely made it into service before an injury took him down, resulting in a medical discharge.
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These are not isolated examples. There are millions of veterans and military family members who are imbued with unyielding purpose and who have deep, relevant skills to help guide our country through these dark times. Some take the bull by the horns and find their own way, but others may need a little push or an ear to hear their stories to find their own way.
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The question is: can we go our own way, take the time to move past the tired old “thanks for service” and engage our veterans and their families from a whole new angle? Our veterans are national assets, and they have much to offer in skills and leadership, things our country needs in these difficult times.
The return on the investment of honest, non-judgmental time spent with our veteran population may well give America a powerful population of veterans and family members uniquely qualified to lead our country and our children to better days. But without you, our civil neighbors, it is simply not possible. Veterans and civilians working together to make our country the best it can be for our children… that’s what this day means to me.
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