How Can Post 9/11 Veterans Build Social Bonds In Their Communities

>> Jacquelyn: Welcome you all, and thank you all for being here in Denver. This is the fourth of our Hoover Post 9/11 veteran town hall series events. So I want to talk to you a little bit about what we're doing, why we're here. The Post 9/11 Veterans town hall series was inspired by the time I had spent on a selection committee for a program that Hoover does called the Veteran Fellows Program.

So I'm a fellow at Hoover and I study technology and war. But maybe more importantly for this conversation, I served six years as Air Force officer and have served about 15 as a reservist. And so I am a Post 9/11 veteran. So I sit on the selection committee for our veteran fellowship program.

And in this program, they're taking Post 9/11 veterans and they pair them with Hoover, the resources of Hoover, the academics at Hoover, in order to do a capstone project. And this project is not a paper. It is not something where veterans come in and think about what makes, what do I think about this or that?

It is a project. It is a project in which they make their local communities and the worlds around them better. And in sitting on the selection committee, it made me think about who am I as a Post 9/11 veteran? What is the legacy of my service? And as we selected these Post 9/11 veterans, what do we think that the legacy of this generation of veterans is going to be?

So that led to this, the town hall series where we're talking about who is this generation of veterans? What is their impact on American civil society, American democracy, the future American military? So as this veteran generation comes of age, how are they going to change the world in which they return to.

Now, this particular town hall I was really on the fence about scheduling because I have a polemic. I have an argument about what I think the legacy of the post 911 veteran generation is, and I think it's positive. I think that this generation goes back into America and their civil society and they make America better.

But it's not entirely uncomplicated because this veteran generation also has to deal with the legacy of 20 years of combat service. We have to talk about mental health, we have to talk about suicide, we have to talk about what the behavioral effects of 20 years of combat are on this generation.

And so I think it's impossible for us to talk about what the legacy of the Post 9/11 veteran generation is without also talking about what it has done to the veterans individually. Now, if you read the kind of preamble for what this to wn hall is, I am a political scientist.

I threw a little political science words in there. And I said, social capital. This is a town hall about social capital and it is. But what is social capital, right? And so, because I'm a political scientist, you have to humor me, because I'm going to use a few of our favorite political scientist authors.

And there are two big books that define what social capital is and what social capital is for America. The first is a book written in about 1830 by a frenchman, a guy named Tocqueville. And Tocqueville comes to America in the 1830s, and he's trying to understand how this American democracy thing is working.

And what he finds out is that the reason why Americans are able to do democracy is because of this amazing kind of relationships. That the average American is more invested in their government and how their government works than any other country they've ever been to. Now, fast forward to 2000.

And another political scientist, this time, American named Robert Putman, says, hey, is this still happening in American society? And he writes a book called Bowling Alone. And in bowling alone, he argues that American civil society and American democracy is on the decline because we are doing more things alone.

So that's what I want to talk about today. We want to talk about how this veteran generation is bowling alone and what that means, that relationship with each other, with their communities and themselves, what that means for America. Now, you have in front of you the biographies of our extraordinary panelists.

Because what we're going to do throughout this conversation is talk to them about what they're doing within their communities. Amongst themselves, amongst the veteran communities, in order to solve some of this bowling alone problem. And we're gonna go through a few questions and talk through their service. And then you guys were all given note cards, so please write down any questions that you might have on those note cards.

And we're gonna turn to audience questions. So those will come up to me, and I'll be able to ask the panelists, we want this to be an interactive experience as well. So with no further ado, I'm gonna go ahead and sidle on down here. And I want to start with Claudia, because I want to talk about why we serve.

And I think that's a kind of defining part about this veteran generation. You come from a military family, and this is actually the predominant way that we find that military members decide to serve is through their family. So can you talk us a little bit about how growing up with two military parents influenced your decision to serve?

 

>> Claudia: Sure, growing up, my dad was Air force, and my mom was navy. My grandfather served, my brother served. So I grew up knowing nothing else except the military environment. Where I went to school, everybody's parents served, so that's really all I knew. But as I started to get a little bit older, what I realized about the military community that seemed a little bit different than the non military community is that we didn't focus on what made us different.

Even as kids, we were just a community. And I think that made an impression on me. And then watching my parents serve and sacrifice also made the impression on me that it was important that I did something with my life to serve something greater than myself. And the military was just in my blood, so I thought it was and is one of the most honorable professions.

And that's exactly what I wanted to do with my life, do something honorable and serve something, a cause that's greater than myself.

>> Jacquelyn: But it wasn't a straight path. You had to start as a flight attendant.

>> Claudia: I did.

>> Claudia: So I tried. So I'm not as brilliant as some folks in this room.

So I tried to get into the academies, and they said, thank you, but no thanks. And so I thought, well, maybe the military isn't for me. Maybe I'm supposed to do something else. So I had the honor of serving as a flight attendant, and I thought, well, this is good.

I'm in uniform. I'm serving people. And I did that for two years, and I traveled the world, but it still didn't satisfy what I really wanted to do, and that was the military. So I left the glamorous life of a flight attendant, and I enlisted in the navy.

And when I was in boot camp in Orlando doing push ups, and I looked up and I saw airline flight above me, I'm like, I just made the worst mistake in my life. But that wasn't true. It was actually the best thing I could have done, so.

>> Jacquelyn: Well, I think there are other people on this panel that also had a slightly circuitous path.

And I wanna highlight, Gil, your path, because you shouldn't have served. You had bone spurs, physically disqualifying to serve, and so you could have made a choice. You also already had a master's from some prestigious university in England. So in many ways, you had no reason to serve, and yet you went through extraordinary measures in order to join the marines of all services.

 

>> Gil: Yeah, I guess, felt a little more mundane to me, but, yeah, I grew up with no military family, just the opposite. I mean, we've got maybe a few family members on the wrong side of wars. We've got a whiskey rebel buried deep in family history in Pennsylvania, and my mother's German, and her grandfather and father fought on the wrong side of two world wars.

So, yeah, my grandfather spent three years in a Siberian prison camp and was lucky to came home three years after the war had ended. But that wasn't something that was reinforced or spoken of much. Yeah, no, I took a circuitous route, as you said. I broke my ankle in a drinking related accident my senior year of college and then went off to graduate school in England and felt, again, no family, military background, no kind of natural impetus to serve.

But just felt like I was kind of missing out on something I should be doing and wanted to do, too. Just the sense of adventure.

>> Jacquelyn: Gil, to give context to the audience, when you decided to serve, we were not only already in Afghanistan, but we were also already in Iraq.

So you knew exactly what you were jumping into.

>> Gil: Yeah, sure, although we were by the time I got into the Marine Corps, Iraq was pretty much over. Well, Iraq, round one. So around two out of three, or however you want to score that. So, yeah, I was over living in England, but keeping in touch with friends who've gone in and feeling, I don't know if guilt's the right word, but feeling like it's something I should be doing.

So I came back. The National Health Service there is great for emergency stuff, which I can also speak to personally, any kind of elective stuff, you are gonna wait a while. So I came back to the states, got bone spurs sawed off my ankle, could run again, do all that, and then walked into a recruiters office, and he was probably like, what are you?

Came in at 27 years old and just snuck under. Didn't need an age waiver, but close and then went off to officer candidate school from there, so, yeah.

>> Jacquelyn: I wanna turn to Matt and Robin, so your family members, direct family members, were not directly in the military.

But both of your stories, your military service stories, you've told me about the impact that your families had in your attractions to the military. So can you talk a little bit about how your families and how you grew up led to military service? Sure.

>> Matt: Yeah.

>> Robin: Actually, my family didn't talk about their service.

My grandmother served in World War II. She was actually the army of basketball team or the WAC. She was a cook, and I didn't even know what type of army that she had been in the army. So both my grandfather served, but mostly he was a boy. My high school sweetheart wanted to be a marine, and he convinced me that we should be marines together.

He was a terrible, and we were in a car accident, and his injuries that we sustained in that accident disqualified him from service. But I was wearing his belt and also not a cheater, but whatever. But I had kind of bragged to everybody that I was joining the military, but then since he couldn't join the Marine Corps, I felt badly in the Marine, so I joined the army instead, more because he also cheat.

 

>> Jacquelyn: Matt, what was your pathway to service?

>> Matt: So mine is less circuitous, like direct path. I grew up south of Annapolis. My grandfather was in the navy and didn't talk about it a whole lot. He was a Korean war veteran. Nobody else in my family was in the service, but he was, and I looked up to him, admired him.

And growing up just outside of Annapolis, you go to the naval academy and you see the midshipmen walking around town, and you see them doing really crazy things, like having a full blown parade just to go eat lunch that day. And it's like this really romantic, sort of charmed military existence, and it just sort of pulls you in.

But then there was, for sure a service element, too, where right around the time that it was time to figure out what you're gonna do with the rest of your life as an 18-year-old or so. 9/11 had not yet happened. It was about to, but you could just sense that there was a need, like the USS Cole had just been attacked.

There was just general sense of maybe anxiety is the right word, I don't know. But it was easy to make the decision to put in the application, and I was lucky enough to get in, and so that's how it happened.

>> Jacquelyn: So we're the same age. We're elder millennial, geriatric, geriatric millennials.

Which means that in 2001, we were in pretty similar situations. So you had just gotten to Annapolis a few months prior. I signed my, my scholarship commitment for ROTC on September 10th, 2001 in New York City. And the next day, the world changed. I think the world changed for all of us up here.

Claudia, your world was actually impacted the most. You were in DC. You were assigned to the Pentagon. Can you talk to us a little bit about your experience that day and then how that day changed the trajectory of your service?

>> Claudia: So I'm gonna back up a little bit.

When I went to intel school at Damneck in Virginia, I was in class with another lieutenant who had been serving in the Navy. And in intel school, when they give you exams, you get two chances. If you fail on your first chance, they'll give it to you again.

If you fail the second time, you're out. So I took a test and failed. But it's not because I didn't study. It's just because I seriously didn't understand. So this lieutenant, I mean, I was scared. I had one more chance. So this lieutenant said, you know what? I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna study with you.

I'm gonna help you. You're not gonna fail. And he spent hours with me in the evening studying, helping me to get through this. I took the exam again, and I passed. Now we'll go back to the Pentagon. On that day, this lieutenant, his name was Vince Tolbert, who is the biggest teddy bear in the world.

But if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have made it through intel school. He was in the Pentagon that day. I was not in the Pentagon that day, but Vince was. He was working in the CNO's intelligence plot on that fateful day and was killed in the Pentagon.

And that day was horrible for all of us, but that became very personal for me, and I rededicated my military service. I was in a community where I was doing the training and administration of the reserve force. I was active duty, but I was taking care of the reserve members.

And I decided that day to go back, do the regular intel path so that I could deploy with Vince always in the back of my mind. So that's what I did. I switched paths entirely and decided I'm gonna do my part and fight because Vince is no longer here to do that work for us, so.

 

>> Jacquelyn: I think on this panel, we have over a dozen deployments between the four of Over 20 years in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa. So I think this panel really represents the extraordinary rate of readiness and deployments that we saw for this generation of veterans. So, Robin, you served a little over 20 years, and in those 20 years, you deployed to Afghanistan in 2002, so the beginning, Iraq and the invasion in 2003.

Then you deployed again in 05, in 07, and that was, I think, a 15-month deployment-

>> Robin: Too worth it.

>> Jacquelyn: And those are all the early ones. You then deployed again in 2016. That's crazy.

>> Robin: I know.

>> Jacquelyn: And in that time, in that 15 month deployment, your husband, who's a helicopter pilot, was shot down.

So can you give me a sense, and the audience a sense, like, what was that period in your life? Like, how did you do that?

>> Robin: I have no idea. When I talk about it, I feel like I'm talking about somebody else's life. I think just grit, and you just keep pushing to the next and you think it's going to get easier.

We had kids in the middle of that as well. So, like, that last deployment, I left my three and six year old, and then I came home and my husband left, like, in short order after. So we spent, it was like two years apart. I don't even know how we're still married, but it was hard.

I think a lot of it was having other women mentors and encouragement from. Not that the men weren't great, but mostly it was the women who encouraged me. And I had a really strong family support, especially my mother in law, who would come a lot to help. And then when I tell younger women who serve, just throw money at the problem.

So everything I could outsource, I did. So it sounds a little pretentious maybe, but we had a live-in nanny, we had a housekeeper, we had a yard guy, we had a dog walker. Like, I had all the help I could possibly find because there was just no way to do it.

 

>> Jacquelyn: And I wanna highlight that this generation of veterans is the first generation where it was normalized that women were not only in combat, but also became leaders. So if you look at the women that are serving now in the geo, the general and admiral rank, there's actually a lot of women, and a lot of them are married and a lot of them have kids.

But when I started my service, that didn't exist. And so Robin represents the trailblazing that this generation of women did for the next generation of women that will be in service. So, Matt, your career. So Matt was a surface warfare officer, which is like, the Navy has these just funky terms, right?

So, surface warfare officer, right? So you're gonna hate me cuz I'm an air force, right? You drove ships.

>> Matt: Yes.

>> Jacquelyn: Accurate, okay.

>> Jacquelyn: Right, but you had a pretty diverse and varied career. I'm gonna make sure I've got it right. So, anti piracy, counter opioid, you did a boots-on-the-ground deployment with the 101st airborne, and then you even had a time with the SEALs.

I mean, when I look at your resume, I'm like, this guy did it all in a very short period of time, and then you got out. So explain to me, how did you leave this extraordinary service? What motivated you to begin your civilian life?

>> Matt: I would like to think that I didn't leave the service.

I'd like to think that I just couldn't do what needed to be done while in an active duty uniform. So I grew up wanting to be a naval officer. Right now I'm the CEO of a behavioral healthcare company. And I joke, I did not grow up wanting to be the CEO of a behavioral healthcare company.

 

>> Matt: That wasn't in my plan. I wanted to be in the navy. I wanted to take ships to sea. Growing up in Annapolis, that's exactly what you dream about doing. And fortunately, well, I don't know if fortunately is the right word. Circumstances sort of presented themselves over the course of my early career to where I was able to do a bunch of stuff in a very short period of time.

And at the end of it, I got to go work with the Navy Seal teams. And I was in that job for a few months, and I had just. My previous job was at sea. I was the captain of one of our navy ships in San Diego. And my very best young officer, who I thought was going to be the chief of naval operations one day, had gone to a Marine Corps exchange, which is the equivalent of, like, a walmart on a military base, and he bought a firearm, and he went to his apartment, and he took his own life.

And I want to say that this is, like, a really unusual occurrence, but as many of you here know, that it is not. And so, I called Jen, who is in, she's sitting right there. And I called her, and I was like, hey, this is from the hospital, because he didn't pass away right away.

And I said, hey, I think somebody needs to get at this problem of military and veteran suicide. And then even beyond that, just destructive levels of anxiety and depression, to begin with. I think we need to start a company that specializes in it. And the seals were amazing.

And they said, hey, man, you could continue to do this knife eater stuff, or you could fly around the country and talk to every psychiatrist that you can get a meeting with and ask them how to solve this problem. And I said, I'm gonna do that. And so I did it.

And then the natural progression was to start a company that specializes in delivering cognitive behavior therapy in a creative modality. And it just meant that I couldn't continue to serve in an active duty capacity. But I'm still a commander of the Navy reserve, so I feel like I'm still in the game.

 

>> Jacquelyn: I feel your pain. I get it. You gotta log those. You gotta log those duty hours. You gotta do your CBTs.

>> Matt: That's right. Different kinda CBT.

>> Jacquelyn: Even more fun. So, Gil, you also ended your service, but didn't end your service. So you, as an active duty member, you deploy twice to Afghanistan, but then, like me, you transition from the active duty to academia, asking a lot of the questions.

I think that we probably had in our headland as young officers, but were beyond our pay grade at the time. But then you were a glutton for punishment. So I want to say my path, I went from the air force to the air force reserves. It's a nice little life, let me tell you.

Air force reserves is great. We do really fun things. We got our golf clubs. And you did not take that path. You went to the army, the Army National Guard, so from the Marines to the Army National Guard. So you went citizen, scholar, warrior. Talk to me a little bit about this pathway from your marine active duty to who you are now as both an academic and a member of the National Guard.

 

>> Gil: Yeah, I think, well, you have to buy a new set of cammies and change out uniforms and redo everything. The Marine Corps is spoiled for uniforms, if nothing else, as you kind of alluded to. Yeah, when I got off active duty, I decided to move over to the Army, to the Army Guard.

I think it just struck me as if you're gonna be in the reserves, be in the reserves, don't try to kind of juggle and be sort of quasi active duty. And the army, I think, has a different relationship to its reserves. More than half the army is reserve component between the federal reserves and the guard.

Not to take anything away, a bunch of my friends and roommates and stuff ended up as marine reservists. But it's just a different relationship when the active duty force is 80% of the game versus less than half. I think there's just more permeabilities of buzzword or kinda more in and out from the reserve component of the Army.

The Army can't, structurally, post Vietnam, can't do anything meaningful overseas, certainly without the guard and the reserve. That's a feature, not a bug. That's another whole conversation about the extent to which that's maybe a problem. And the reserves and the guard have gotten a tremendous amount of work.

I mean, the majority of army deployments to Iraq were guard by the end of the war, I think. But I haven't done a tremendous amount of nothing sexy or interesting in the guard. I mobilized for Covid for a few months, worked on a medical response team in Jackie's one time home state of Rhode island and learned a lot.

I mean, I knew nothing about public health. It was basically operations guy while people with actual medical expertise did the hands on stuff. But it was interesting and it was, I mean, that's kind of partially. And you sort of alluded to that. I think that's one of the reasons you do reserve stuff for a lot of people is, there's some benefits and healthcare and other stuff, but generally a lot of it sort of keep your hand in the game to be able to help out when necessary.

And if something happens. COVID was an unexpected, weird opportunity to do that. It was a lot better to get up there as quickly as possible versus sitting on my couch in DC with everything shut down and everyone figuring out what to do with themselves.

>> Jacquelyn: Well, that is exactly the link that I wanna push on a little bit because we're gonna transition now to talking about the relationship and the linkages between civil and military and how you build those.

And I wanna come back to you, Gail, because the guard in some ways should be the perfect bridge, the perfect transition between citizen and soldier. So how would you, in your personal life and actually your academic research, what have you observed about how the National Guard affects civil military relationships?

 

>> Gil: Well, that's like anything in American political life. That's an increasingly fraught question, right? When we have state guards facing off of federal agencies and we have, you know, essentially kind of a refusal to follow orders related to COVID. And there's a whole stew of stuff there. And we can go back to the civil rights era and federalizing guards and things like that, right?

So that's always, that's, and that's even sort of tocquevillian and sort of the tension between periphery in the center and the federal, state and states. So that's a whole piece of it. I do think that post 911, there's a lot of unhealthy stuff that's crept in. The positive narrative is that the garden reserves are no longer like a good old boys club that meets up to go hunting and then kind of pen whip some forms, and everybody gets some.

Some drill points and gets retirement 30 years later. The garden reserves have been professionalized to a large degree, and that's generally. We always think of professional as a positive word. There's a pretty long and healthy American amateur military tradition, which there's some negatives to that. I mean, George Washington kind of didn't love the militia because he thought they weren't all that good at fighting, but that through line, any kind of major war we fight, we're gonna fight with citizen soldiers.

And that's actually the exception. Iraq and Afghanistan, which are maybe not major, but moderate sized wars in the United States, we didn't have a draft, right? We didn't even pay the wars on credit, too, for what it's worth. But we did not force Americans, or at least American men, into uniform in those wars, unlike in Vietnam, Korea, World War 1, World War 2, the Civil War, 1812 and revolution are a little trickier.

But certainly every war since the civil war, every major war, we've had compulsory service. We didn't do that after 911. Whether we could have or should have, we chose not to. And one of the pieces of that as you've said, is that the guard and reserve got a ton of work guardsmen, reservists for especially for a kind of a period there when the Iraq war was at its height, were quasi active duty, people were deploying a lot, couldn't maintain a regular civilian life.

I think that's still being worked out. The other thing is the guard in particular became kind of addicted to title ten to Department of Defense dollars. And so I think we've now changed. And Jackie, you've done some real work on this. We've changed from the guard and reserve being a strategic reserve, kind of a stay proficient, but break glass in case of emergency to being an operational reserve.

That's essential for just day to day global DoD activities. So we have guardsmen doing all kinds of mundane. I mean my state, which is tiny, Rhode island, has guardsmen in Kosovo. I mean most Americans would never know. We still have people doing a legacy peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, Kosovo, the Middle east, people coming and going all the time.

 

>> Jacquelyn: So I think you've highlighted two things that I think are really unique to this post 911 veterans generation. One is this is an all volunteer force. Right. So everyone sitting up here was not drafted. We all decided to serve. And that there's a cold war veteran generation that that's similar to.

But other than that, all the other veteran generations are from an army that conscripted and drafted. So this is a big difference. Another big difference is that these were wars fought by the total force. So it was wars fought by the active duty, the reserve, and the guard.

I think there are other things that are unique about the transition that this generation of veterans has in their transition to the civilian world. And part of those are the rise of social media. So the rise of kind of virtual engagement as opposed to in person physical interactions.

I think the diversity of this generation. So post 911 veterans, I've had some on our panels, very distinguished, who commissioned in 1975, but they served ten plus years after 911. And then we have others that started their service in 2020. That is an extraordinary difference in terms of age and interest.

You also have a veteran generation that has more women than ever before in serving and combat, right? So it's a whole different set of issues than you had in previous veteran generations. So I think these are new challenges for building social linkages and social capital. So, Matt, you've actually done research on this, and I want to talk to you specifically about social media.

So your work and the research that you've done, what role does social media have in how veterans transition? Is this like a net positive thing? Is it a net negative thing? What kind of indications have you seen about how social media affects veterans in this generation ability to transition successfully into this civilian society?

 

>> Matt: That's a terrific question.

>> Jacquelyn: Thank you.

>> Matt: I'm glad you asked. So social media, net positive or net negative? So, I am not an academic. I run a healthcare company, and we have a specialized modality of delivering cognitive behavioral therapy. But why would you need cognitive behavioral therapy?

One of the reasons is nowadays for sure, everyone's relationship with their mobile device. We started the company to service the military and veteran community, but we very, very quickly discovered that it, like, it transcends the military community, right? Right now in our country, one out of ten children will make an attempt on their own life before they graduate from high school.

To me, that is the most shocking and staggering statistic imaginable. Like one out of ten. That, to me, is inexcusable. And when you start peeling the onion back on, why is it that we're in that situation? It's that we have a different way of socializing with each other.

There's a bunch of different reasons, and I'm not trying to, like, say that this would be a panacea if we could just fix it, but social media and the relationship that we have with our mobile devices is a massive contributor to the destructive states of anxiety and depression that we see because it essentially amplifies the cognitive distortions that all human beings suffer from.

Like, these are cognitive distortions that are hardwired in our DNA from, like our ancestors on the African plane, and that somehow this little device and the way that we communicate with each other through it can amplify it. I do not want to suggest that we, like. Moved back to, you know, a day before we had social media and devices, because I think to Jackie's point, it's a knife edge.

On the one side, there are these really destructive states that you need to be wary of, but on the other, it is a tremendously empowering tool, and you can rally folks around positive things. And I think that's obviously where we would all like to be. But I do think that it requires a profound renegotiation of our relationship with the device.

And it is nowhere more directly visited than my dinner table, because I have a 12 year old that's sitting in the back row right now.

>> Jacquelyn: Is she on her phone?

>> Matt: No, and she is not on her phone right now.

>> Jacquelyn: Impressive.

>> Matt: But that's for good reason.

So it's like, yeah, we fight about it regularly, but I think she gets it and she knows that it's a place where tremendous amounts of good can be done, but it's also a vortex that you can fall into if you don't go into it with the right mentality.

I'm sorry, this is the longest answer ever. But there's also, in the United States, we are subject to a fire hose of information on social media, whether it be for good or ill. And it is unregulated. I mean, it's just coming at you. And it's not necessarily from people who mean you well.

It could be from Russian SVR, it could be from Chinese intelligence operatives, it could be from all of these places. And they use that freedom of speech that we all enjoy so much. Like in the same way someone fighting you in judo would use your own momentum against you, they use it against you.

And so I just say that we have a responsibility now, because these mediums are so powerful, to really learn how to vet information. It's like a part of our civic responsibility now to learn how to vet information in a good way.

>> Jacquelyn: Well, I think part of what you're highlighting with the social media is how people can build virtual connections.

But that is not only not a substitution for the physical connections, it can actually be dangerous. But this generation doesn't have a physical place for us to meet. I mean, we're here. We're here at VFW1, but I'm gonna be really honest with you. I don't generally feel comfortable at VFWs or American legions.

I feel like I don't fit in. And I think it's not just me. I think a lot of post 911 veterans are not finding similar kind of physical spaces where they can reconnect, where they can share a beer with each other, and they can build. They can bowl together and build communities around veterans' issues, the kinds of issues that we're talking about that can lead to isolation and suicide.

Claudi, you're working directly on this, and actually, part of why we're here is your initiative. This is an extraordinary VFW, even visually, I think it's different than what I often expect to see from a VFW post. So can you talk a little bit about this initiative and what you're trying to do to rebuild physical spaces where veterans can reconnect with one another?

 

>> Claudia: Yes, so, fun fact, there are more American Legion posts and VFW posts across this nation than there are Starbucks. Those are physical places. But if you think of your typical VFW, American Legion, not this one.

>> Jacquelyn: Not this one, right.

>> Claudia: The stereotypical one, it's dark and gloomy and-

 

>> Matt: Smoke-filled.

>> Claudia: Smoke-filled.

>> Jacquelyn: Bad Wi-Fi. No Wi-Fi.

>> Claudia: No Wi-Fi.

>> Gil: Cheap beer, though.

>> Matt: Yeah.

>> Claudia: They're closed most of the time, and then they open for bingo, which is great, but it's not something that's gonna bring a younger generation, a veteran in. And the membership is generally not representative of the diversity of our military force.

Today, we talked about social connection. There are virtual vsos, such as team red, white, and blue or Team Rubicon. But I think what veterans miss from their military service is a camaraderie, being around other veterans. We can all veterans in this room, we can go back into another room and sit there, and the conversation would not be awkward.

We wouldn't need an icebreaker, because the connection is we all serve. So what we're trying to do, through Chimney Trail Foundation, is renovate, literally renovate these spaces to make them into bright, inviting, coworking spaces where veterans can gather, their families can gather. We can rebuild the community, rebuild camaraderie, and bring in programming that will help empower workforce development, mentoring, and coaching.

We're partnering with businesses in the local community to build pipelines and training programs specifically for veterans. For instance, in Virginia, we're working with an advanced manufacturing organization. They really want to hire veterans, so we're working with them to build a training program so that we can bring that training into this new, renovated space, and it's just a place for our veterans to gather.

And then I think the bigger picture of all of this is, you know, our nation, some would say, is divided. We don't listen to each other. We don't talk to each other. But I really think through these renovated spaces and bringing the veteran community and having a welcoming veteran community, we can really start to lead in the community and show our community this is how it can and should be.

We should gather together. The surgeon general, I think, recently issued an epidemic of isolation and loneliness in this nation and said we need to prioritize social connection. That's for everyone, and it's critically important for veterans. And I worked with a lot of veterans in my time at the Virginia Department of Veteran Services.

And the number one thing I heard constantly from veterans is I really miss the camaraderie. I really miss the camaraderie. So that's what we're working on. And I saw there a great space upstairs, and we really wanna renovate that space as well and have veterans work on their art and sell their art outside in here and just really become a community again.

 

>> Jacquelyn: And I think creativity and finding kind of outlets and ways to bond with each other and to deal with kind of both the difficult parts of military life, but also kind of the relatively funny parts of military life, the stupid stuff stuff. And that is a huge part of what Robin is doing in trying to reach veterans and military members with humor.

Now, I will say, as a currently serving reserve member who must click through training slides about how not to kill myself, they're not funny. I don't connect with them much. I click as quickly as I can to get through them. And that means that both me as a service member, if I was struggling, these would not be helpful.

In fact, sometimes I say that they actually make me feel more anxious and upset than when I was going into them. So your program and what you're doing is pretty exciting. Can you tell the audience a little bit about how you use humor to try and connect with veterans, have veterans connect with each other and really kind of help mental health.

 

>> Robin: Can I just say first that you're bragging about the Air Force and all your amenities and golf courses. When I retired from the army, I was like, I wonder what it would have been like if I had gone to the air force. And so I bought a peloton.

 

>> Robin: I'm not saying that everybody-

>> Jacquelyn: To be fair, it's Navy that does the bike fit test cuz they are less fit than us.

>> Robin: She's clearly never been to the gyms at any of the Air Force bases lately.

>> Robin: But I'm not saying that everybody in the Air Force does a peloton.

I'm just saying that once you own one, you're part of a community that also thinks it's better than everybody else. So,

>> Robin: If you wanna know what that feels like. Yeah, so when I got out of the military and I decided to become a stand up comedian, it was not enough to just get on stage and tell jokes.

I wanted to be funny, but more importantly, I was so tired of the narrative. The sad Sarah McLaughlin songs of PTSD and deployment and wounded warrior. Nothing against the wounded warrior project but the sad commercials, if you will. And I thought, we are so funny. My best stories in the military were in the motor pole talking with my soldiers and making fun of people talking trash about the air force.

Matt is roots for the Navy. I'm so sorry that you're used to disappointment like that, but it's like, that's the bonding, and that's what I wanted to bring back. So we created best Medicine brigade, which is a group of military affiliated comedians. We have military spouses, independents, as well as veterans.

And so we go all over the world now doing comedy, and then that wasn't enough. Cuz that'll get, what you're doing, Claudia. We started off with VFWs and legions cuz they were coming to us and saying, we can't get your generation to come in. I said, cuz you're playing bingo.

We don't wanna play bingo. I said, let's do a comedy show. And we would pack the house, and that's when people will come. Also, funny fact, women like to laugh. You bring women and the men come. That's just how that works.

>> Robin: So real rocket science stuff that I'm doing here.

And so we started doing that, but that wasn't enough. And so then we developed Hilarious, which is a program and partnering now with Matt on. Okay, if you were choking, you would know what to do. You would do the international sign for choking. You would have someone give you a Heimlich or give yourself abdominal thrust.

You know the protocol. But if your brain is choking on negative thoughts, laughter and humor is a Heimlich maneuver for your brain. And that is what we're doing now with the VA and a couple other organizations. So it's taking off. And with Matt's help, hopefully we'll be able to help more people.

 

>> Jacquelyn: Well, I think we've talked a lot about this generation of veterans and the unique challenges that this generation of veterans has in transitioning into civilian life. Gill, you're writing a book about the all volunteer force. What do you think what's the role of this generation going to be in the future of all volunteer force?

 

>> Gil: Well, I could give you a pessimistic take or an optimistic take. The pessimistic take would be that this generation is one of the last generations of the all volunteer force. And I think there are very serious questions about the sustainability of the way we've chosen to man our military for the past 50 years.

And we don't really wanna talk about those questions. I mean, last year I went through the show of hands thing, but we just passed 50 years since the AVF stood up and the draft ended, depending how you want to time it. But let's call it last summer when the last PF, the last draftee, who was PFC stone from Oakland, California, didn't really wanna be there, but showed up and served in the army and served in Fort Polk and did whatever it was, I think, 18 months.

That was last summer. That anniversary got very little fanfare, a couple little media pieces here, some little, but very little recognition for what's, I think, a pretty seminal moment not only in the US military but in American society. I mean, the fact that people don't have to serve and there isn't that expectation of service in either peace or wartime undergirds a lot of things about our economy, our society and our politics.

So the best ones to take would be that this isn't gonna continue, that we're in the middle of a R, C recruiting crisis. And that's got a bunch of reasons. But there's an open question of whether the AVF is sustainable. The more optimistic narrative is that, as you've kind of spoken to from the outset here, Jackie, that this generation, millennials, and now we're well into Gen Z.

I mean, we're not people on the panel here. We're not the target audience for military recruiting at all. I don't have kids, but if I started early, I could have, eligible recruiters bang on the door kids. And some of you guys probably kids are a little ways out from that scary thought, right?

Six years, five years, right? I see that, the shaking head in the audience. Exactly. But that's very much an open question. And the one of the biggest pieces, I'll leave it here, is that there is military rest to a degree I think a lot of people don't recognize, especially non veterans.

The military has become a family trade, and that's something they did not, that was not anticipated at all when the draft ended. The AVF is very much family trade, maybe the army more so, but I think it's true across all the services. The most recent couple of recruiting classes in the army, 80% of people signing up had either close acquaintance or family member who served.

30%, plus 32% was a parent. If those parents decide they don't think their kids should serve, and they should, in any healthy family, be the most important influencer in their kid's life. Regardless of how active they are on social media, usually the parent is going to drive you in healthy ways if they don't want their kids to serve, the AVF breaks, I mean, that is the thin ray.

It seems crazy when you think of a country with 330 million people and we need 3, 400,000 people a year to sign up for the military. But that won't happen without a high percentage of veterans sending their kids in. So, I mean, that's, to me, one of the biggest questions going forward.

 

>> Jacquelyn: Now we're gonna transition to audience questions, so finish writing your questions, and then Jackie J is going to take your questions and hand them up to me. But while you guys are writing and scribbling, I'm gonna ask one more moderator question, and this is for Robin and Matt.

I think there's a perception that veterans are all wounded and that we've talked a lot about mental health and suicide. And I think we have a pretty significant issue with this generation of veterans and a lot more suicide than we've seen ever in the past. But we also know that this generation of veterans has already started to serve in civilian communities in really extraordinary ways.

So how do we square that narrative between veterans are wounded and they are, and they need support. And also, veterans are an important part of American society, not just, as people who should be supported, but who are continuing to support their civilian societies. How do we deal with that kind of conflicting narrative?

 

>> Matt: You want me to take it? Yeah, so I think Rahman hit the nail in the head. It's like the narrative needs to shift, because for as many folks, first of all, there is a ton of resource available to our veterans. This isn't a sad sack community that needs to be felt sorry for or isn't able to cope or whatever the case might be.

There is an extraordinary amount of resource available to veterans to help bridge them from the time of service to actually being reintroduced into society. So it's not like we're in this crisis where people, it's under resourced. We're not spending money as a society on it. People don't care.

We're coming home to people calling us baby killers or whatever the case may have been in a previous generation, that we're coming home to a very warm and inviting society that is trying to reintegrate us but might not exactly know how. And I think that, this post 911 town hall is a really great example.

We've done a bunch of these and The attendance for something like this is sort of hit or miss, and it's why. So I think more than worrying about resourcing the problem or whatever the case might be, we have, like, a strategic narrative issue. I think Robin hit the nail on the head when she was like, it's tired of, like, that.

Sarah McLaughlin, is that what you said?

>> Robin: Yeah, the eyes of an age, it's the sad narrative. We need to let them tell their stories that are funny, too. We're not getting both sides of the story, we're hearing one voice. I work with a lot of veterans, and one of the things, and this is dark humor.

So if you're sensitive to that, do not Will Smith slap me.

>> Robin: But veterans tend to be very dark humor, and sometimes that can be off putting. And if you're a civilian and not used to that, that could be a little bit of a divide. But I work with veterans, like, I had a marine friend who attempted to take his own life and was unsuccessful, thank goodness.

But, when I'm working with him and we're writing jokes about his experience, he wanted to speak about it. And so I was helping to beef up his speech with some humor, and I was like, well, you could be like, I know you don't believe I was a marine because I missed.

It's hard, it's dark, he loved it. And the other marines in the audience really thought that was funny. And I was like, dude, when I told you you needed new headshots, I was not being literal. Now that's very, very dark. But it made him laugh to the point where he was, like, belly laughing, and he was, thank you for not treating me like I was a pity case.

Thank you for not tiptoeing around me and treating me just like anybody else, I needed that today. Not for everyone, I realize, but for him, was what he needed in that moment. So I think too often, like, we like to treat veterans like they're broken, and then they feel like they can't be their true selves.

 

>> Jacquelyn: All right, you never know what's in it.

>> Robin: Never know.

>> Jacquelyn: Actually, this first question is extraordinary and really amazing, and I'm gonna make all of you answer it. Do you think that military service should be required? I'll start with you, Claudia.

>> Claudia: I'm going to say, yes, I think the value of service should be something that we all learn, our children all learn.

Now, does it have to be military service? Could it be peace Corps? Could it be something like that, sure. But I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, serving something greater than yourselves is important, and you'll need to do that. Sometime after high schools and before this stage of life or something.

So maybe it's not the military, maybe, like I said, it's peace Corps, maybe it's some other type of service. But I don't see anything wrong with saying, learn to serve something greater than yourself.

>> Jacquelyn: Matt.

>> Matt: No, I do not think that it should be required. I think that service, to Claudia's point, I think service is for everybody, military service is not for everybody.

Please do not send the military, your kids, if you think that the military is going to fix them, it's not a parenting, like, boot camp organization. I think that military service in the all volunteer force is critical. I know Gill's research is super important in preservation of the all volunteer force.

Because the weapon systems that we need to defend our democracy are too sophisticated to expect to draft your way into a success in a future conflict. So preserving that and making sure that we have the capacity to field an all volunteer force is really important. But I think requiring it, no, requiring service, great.

But if you really wanna defend democracy, learn how to critically vet information and become a teacher and teach other people how to critically vet information. Cuz the stuff that you're seeing now is so skewed and all over the map, we can do better.

>> Jacquelyn: And I will say one of the pathways that we have noticed in this town hall series that is under resourced is the pathway from veteran to teacher.

And so it's interesting that we haven't had more investment in that, in our kind of veteran transition programs.

>> Matt: Absolutely.

>> Jacquelyn: Gil?

>> Gil: Yeah, I think without a lot of equivocation, I think military service should be mandatory. I think that it's ultimately protecting the country is an obligation.

And I think we're way off the other end of the spectrum in terms of how few obligations we ask of Americans, right? We borderlines celebrate people for, like, not paying their taxes artfully, right? I think we're way past, and we need to restore that, I don't know that mandatory service would unite the nation.

I think we should be doing it because it should be an obligation of a citizen in a republic. I don't think that looks like, first of all, it doesn't look like every American serving. I mean, there's even in countries with mandatory, reasonably healthy countries in all ways. And we talk about mental health a lot, Israel, when it's all said and done, about 70% of Jewish citizens will serve despite mandatory service.

Finland, which is mandatory mail service, about the same, about two thirds of men will start and finish their military service. And those countries obviously have a major enemy on their doorstep, and that's why they have mandatory military service. I think in the United States, it probably looks very different.

If we were to go in that direction, we don't need 12 million men in uniform, mostly men like we did in World War II. We have two oceans, and we have two weak, friendly neighbors. This country is fundamentally very safe, despite what a morning reading the paper might tell you.

That being said, maybe it looks like mandatory military training. Maybe you go through three or four months of training, and then you were in a call up in case of emergency. There's a lot to be gained from basic military training in terms of personal resilience, in terms of even just information literacy.

I don't know what the state of, that's something that probably gets maybe a quick pen swipe in boot camp or an introductory military training now. But there are a lot of things that maybe should be covered in high school or that are basic financial literacy, basic information awareness.

That I think should be expected of every citizen, or at least have learned that. So this isn't gonna happen anytime soon. But I think that, to me, that is an obligation of citizenship.

>> Jacquelyn: Robin?

>> Robin: Yeah, I don't think that they should be required to serve. I would like that, but I think it opens up whole other can of worms.

Like, to Matt's point, I do agree that our high school curriculum needs a serious update. I mean, they're graduating with no understanding of what it means to serve very little, anyway. And they don't even know CPR or first aid. I mean, basic life skills, I think maybe some mandatory training that should, we, our nation, need to call in, go to World War III.

I feel like there shouldn't be that big of a training gap. Everybody should be on a level where they know the basics, and then it's just a matter of them having their military occupational specialty training from that point.

>> Jacquelyn: All right, I'm gonna move to the second question, and this one actually hits home for me.

The question is, what role do you think the divorce rate plays in these social bonds, and what can we do about that? I'm gonna expand this and say, what role did the extraordinary deployments and readiness that we have sustained over the last two decades have for the American military family?

And how was that stressor on the American military family? How does that affect both, like, post 911 veterans and the future of the all volunteer force?

>> Robin: Well.

>> Jacquelyn: As someone who managed it, which, I'll be honest, when we talked before this, one of the things that was most remarkable to me was your marriage.

That you had-

>> Robin: Me, too.

>> Jacquelyn: Done everything and stayed married, that is a statistical outlier. That's an extraordinary feat.

>> Robin: Yeah. Yeah, I think the military families have been through so much because it's very difficult to survive in a middle class standard of living without two incomes.

And when your spouse is deployed and if you have children, it's extremely difficult to also have a job. So it was a lot of years of single income, and even with hazardous duty pay and tax-free pay, it was a financial stress for a lot of families. And then the frequent deployments and separations too, the spouses don't sign up for that, but they do in a sense.

I mean, my husband missed the birth of our son. He was in Afghanistan when he was born, and he was very upset about that. And I was like, well, if you have to miss something, you can miss the conception or the birth. I picked the birth, and then I was like, wait a second, how long has he been going?

I'm pretty sure he was there for that, yeah.

>> Robin: That's a joke.

>> Jacquelyn: I actually, I'm a dual mil as well, so I and my husband flew fighter aircraft. And I think one of the, it was the main reason I actually got out of active duty was how difficult it was to be stationed together.

And at the time to have children in the military. When we were thinking about having kids, they didn't have some of the policies that they have today. But what I've noticed is my kind of generation has progressed through the ranks is that there is less traditional kind of 50s families that really were the core of the American military.

And the American military, the deployments, the PCSs, the change of stations, really require one parent to be home as much as possible. That way, that parent is able to support the other member. That's why quite often with military spouse members, they are given roles. They have actual roles that they are given and training that they are given in order to support the active duty member.

But increasingly, there have been some studies done at places like Sina's. That's not the American family. Most American families are dual career, and increasingly, our officer corps is dual career. And so it's been harder and harder to keep those families in the military, and it's been a problem for retention.

So I think that's something that people know is a problem and are trying to fix at some level.

>> Gil: Jackie, if I can hop in.

>> Matt: I was gonna say, go ahead.

>> Gil: Yeah, just say quickly and I speak. I'll say this is a very different experience. I was single for seven plus years in the Marine Corps.

And that's great, I mean, you put your stuff in storage, you come home, you have 50 grand. It's great to deploy, it's a single guy. So I say this second hand, but I think it's pretty clear. We do some stuff, and you hit on it. The military is built around a 1950s family model.

And like a lot of things, it has not been updated. There's just been, and it comes down to Congress. Military doesn't govern itself, nor should it. There's been just legislative negligence on this. And you hit one end of it, which is that we, I mean, you look, blue star families and some other groups do some polling on this.

Spousal employment or really spousal unemployment is usually the number one or number two reason-

>> Jacquelyn: And underemployment.

>> Gil: In the military. Yep, and underemployment as well, exactly. I mean, anecdotally, you have all kinds. Usually, not always, but it's disproportionately men and their female spouses can't find employment. Women with T12 law degrees, with PhDs, I mean, a gunnery sergeant I knew, his wife was a marine biologist.

And they're working a buck 50 above minimum wage because of where they are physically, and then they get moved around all the time. So even if they were trying to establish a career in a somewhat inhospitable physical place, they never have the permanence to do that. And I think that disproportionately hits your top performers.

You get high power dual marriages, where both people wanna have careers, you're gonna lose a huge chunk. And no one's really measured this, but you're gonna lose some of your best people. On the flip side, we incentivize marriage with our recruiting structure and with what we do, and tell you how many young marines get married to get out of the barracks.

I'm sure it's true in the other services as well. And sometimes that works out. I mean, some of those become lifelong marriages. A lot of them don't, probably the vast majority don't. I mean, I think my most legit leadership accomplishment as the second lieutenant was convincing a super-driven, hotshot young PFC not to marry the British girl he met in LA six weeks before he went to Afghanistan.

And he came home and he had never talked to her again. So, and he was about to do that. So we have it on both ends, and I think there's a wholesale change to do and how the military treats family life.

>> Robin: Yeah, well, not forget the overseas, I just came from Japan on an armed forces entertainment tour.

And one of the spouses that was showing us around is a doctor, and she's not working for two years cuz she wanted to accompany her husband to Japan. But it's like, wow.

>> Matt: There's easy things that we can do. Back to this, not wanting this to be a sob story again.

There's easy things that Jen, my wife, she's an elementary school teacher. Theoretically, nurses and teachers should be able to get employment literally anywhere. Mars, you ought to be able to get a job. This group right here is very civically active, obviously, you're sitting in a room like this.

So you can call your congressman and say, hey, what about making it so that teachers who are assigned or who are with a military spouse without having to be teaching in the same school for three years could make an application for national certification? And then they could go work.

This is like the stroke of a pen, you could change that. And then it completely flips the script on the whole spousal employment thing. And I think there's a lot to be said for the Joining Forces campaign. We hear a lot about that in the behavioral health community.

Joining Forces are doing some great work in that space. So this isn't all bad news, we can change stuff for the better.

>> Jacquelyn: There's also sofa agreements or status of forces agreements in which in some countries, military spouses are actually not allowed to work. And so there have been some movement to try and change those agreements to allow military spouses to work.

So moving to the next question, I wanna start with you, Claudia, because this is really actually your question. So what traction actually exists for making real changes with the VFW American Legion organizations? So are there political kind of forces that are helping? Is there money out there that is helping?

Is there kind of a grassroots movement? Is it just you?

>> Claudia: Just me.

>> Claudia: There is a lot of interest in the community. There's a lot of interest in the business community. I have to say that the VFW posts and the American Legion post and the DAV post, it's hit or miss.

Some of them can't see the vision and they just wanna stay the way they are. Unfortunately, if they stay the way they are, they're on life support now, and it's not gonna be a pretty ending if they just stay the way they are. So it's finding the right post that understands that they need to do something else to bring in the younger generation of veterans, like this post is doing here.

As far as funding, we do have organizations who have said that they will give us money once we have the location set. And in the state of Virginia, I'm working with the state, with the Secretary for Veterans and Defense Affairs. They're very interested in what we're doing. They are committed to working with us in certain communities in the state.

I'm not allowed to say more at this time, because I'd be getting ahead of what they're doing in Virginia. So we have a commitment at the state level. I was told, I was allowed to say that. So that's from the secretary's office. So we do have interests. We have political interests, we have state government interests, and we have private interest as well.

Well, so we're right there, Jacking. We're right there.

>> Robin: So. If we're talking about all volunteer force. The legion, I come from a very small town in Ohio. The legion is the only hub of social activity in my small farm town. And I grew up going to Friday chicken fries or chicken Fridays.

And that was where we'd go and hang out. And I would hear these stories from the veterans. I heard more from them. I never heard from my grandparents. So I was like, that was really influential to me to make my decision to serve. So I feel like if we think that people are just gonna walk into recruiting stations, they're not.

It's hearing those stories. So those facilities are really important.

>> Jacquelyn: Robin, I wanna stay with you for the next question.

>> Robin: Okay, are we ready for those or not?

>> Robin: Those dark jokes do not go for.

>> Jacquelyn: So the question is, and I'll give everyone a chance at this.

But I'll start with you, Robin. How do we build consistent outreach to Post 9/11 Bets? I actually think of us on the panel, you are the closest to actively doing outreach. What's working? What's not working?

>> Robin: Well, especially, since COVID people wanna laugh. People really miss laughing. It's really hard to be anxious or depressed when you're laughing.

It's something that kinda brings people together. It's also bipartisan. You can talk about things that you normally couldn't talk about cuz it's just a joke. Unless you're Chris Rock, then you're gonna get slapped.

>> Robin: But it's very unifying, and it's low threat. We know that the community wants to learn more about your experiences.

They don't necessarily wanna come to formal things. But they'll come to a comedy show. They'll come support. And then the veterans need help. They wanna help, but they aren't gonna walk into the VA and be like, hey, I'm having a bad day. They'll go to a comedy show.

And then that opens the door to them connecting to other resources. So I think it's working just to be kind of informal and fun. Make it fun.

>> Jacquelyn: This is a challenge for me because I am an academic, and I am inherently boring. So this has been.

>> Jacquelyn: And, Matt, people probably don't knock on your door either.

Or how do people get to you? How do you do outreach to veterans? And what do you think places like the VA and other organizations that are kind of notorious, difficult to get through the bureaucratic hurdles to get in the door. What's the solution there?

>> Matt: Yeah.

>> Jacquelyn: Fix the VA, you have 30 seconds.

 

>> Matt: No, I suppose for.

>> Matt: So everybody is a VA, a bad rep. The VA is some one of the best healthcare imaginable. You just have to figure out how to get in the door, that's it. So that's the VA pitch. They're wonderful. They really wanna do a great job.

So you're right, people don't like, knock on the door of a behavioral healthcare company. It's super intimidating sounding. But we have flipped delivery of behavioral healthcare resources on its head. And instead of you knocking on our door, we knock on yours. And so we've created cognitive behavioral therapy training.

And it gets delivered to your house in a box. So, like Stitch Fix gives you clothes, and HelloFresh gives you food. We give you cognitive behavioral therapy in a box.

>> Jacquelyn: So do I get to choose what I keep and what I send back?

>> Matt: No.

>> Matt: You gotta keep it all.

No, so you got really smart people working on what goes in the kit. But the idea is that the kit, you can do it by yourself. If you're in a profound state of depression, and you just need a little bit of a boost. The stuff that's inside the box is exciting so you wanna open it up.

But it can also be done in a community setting. So maybe you do by yourself, but also you could do this kit with your family and friends. And each of them introduces you to the cognitive distortions that lead to destructive anxiety, depression. And it sounds, I mean, it's not sophisticated.

It's just like we're mailing you something that you probably should have learned in a healthcare class in high school or something, right? It's not super sophisticated, but it's easy. It's making the right thing the easy thing.

>> Jacquelyn: I'm gonna move to the next question. And this is specifically based on a comment you made, Gil.

So I went like, if you just take the first stab at this, cuz it's hard. And why are parents reluctant or unwilling to have their kids serve?

>> Gil: Yeah, I don't have an answer to that. I'm trying to think that I can work with to do some polling on that.

I don't have kids, but that aside.

>> Robin: Get one for the team, man.

>> Gil: Yeah, but I think that the.

>> Gil: I think it's probably a combination of things. I do think that losing two wars and let's call what it is, that's gonna matter. Part of me thinks, it's probably not the fundamental reason, especially when you look at generation Z recruiting, which is what we're well into at this point.

The lack of memory or knowledge is kinda staggering. We're roughly the same age. Most of us in the panel here are probably the last. We just missed social media. I think Facebook came out when I was a senior in college. So it wasn't really a thing. I think it was that year, maybe the year prior.

We were sorta digital natives. And people talk about digital.

>> Jacquelyn: We were probably like early adopters.

>> Matt: Yeah.

>> Gil: It's okay.

>> Matt: You still have.edu.

>> Jacquelyn: My gosh.

>> Gil: Yeah, yeah.

>> Jacquelyn: Yeah.

>> Gil: That was the thing. That's right, but I think people talk about digital natives. To me, that's kinda meaningless, I mean, like consumer, I'm not a tech guy by any stretch.

But consumer electronics and technology is designed to be used by the lowest common denominator. It's designed to be user friendly if it's not, it probably gets booted out of the marketplace pretty quickly, unless it's Microsoft. But that being said, I think that stuff is being a digital native is not.

You're a little quicker on the cell phone than you're my 82 year old father, all right? But if you're a social media native, to me, that's a dramatically different thing. So I think that the degree to which that reshapes brains and the cell phone, puts that on steroids in terms of having the immediacy of that.

I think getting our heads around that is probably the biggest piece in terms of how to generate. And there're all kinds of ideas in terms of social media influencers. And I've seen that stuff kicked around. I don't think the bang for the buck is very good on that.

But to bring background to parents and their role, they still are, I think, the primary influencer for kids. Even in spite of all, no matter how many kind of YouTube channels are driving your life and your personal behavior and your morning routine, I think parents are still the driver.

I think a lot of it is a broader lack of trust. And we've had a breakdown in trust as Americans. Probably, we could start at Watergate or Vietnam is probably a good point. So it really predates the current moment. But I think COVID, I think the Iraq war, I think the global financial crisis and how that was handled and how that hit average Americans.

And I think a growing awareness of the fact that most people have been treading water.

>> Jacquelyn: This is a really interesting question cuz I'm a parent. And I think a lot about, like should my child serve? But one of the other veterans that was on one of our other panels who was pretty extraordinary.

He's like one of these, just like how he did extraordinary things in the military, and then he does extraordinary things as a civilian. His teenagers came to the panel, and we sat with them at dinner afterwards. And I said, my gosh, did you know all this about your dad?

Isn't he cool? And they said, no, we had no idea. They didn't know he had served. And I thought, well, that's interesting. I mean, these kids they were teenagers. They were sharp teenagers. They were athletic. They were smart. They were civically minded. But neither of them had thought about joining the military.

And this panel that their dad made them sit through. I think we actually asked them to sit through it to increase the numbers.

>> Jacquelyn: That was the first time that they had thought of their dad as a military veteran. And thought about whether they would wanna do that service.

And so I think that's really interesting. I'd love to hear from the parents on the panel what you guys are thinking about. How do you talk about it with your kids?

>> Matt: Gil was giving me a panic attack over here.

>> Matt: We're talking about whether or not service should be compulsory.

And for. For me as a kid, service was like a dream come true. To go to Annapolis was like, I wanted to be a midshipman and serve in the Navy, and that was like a life pursuit. And I want my kids to be able to have a life pursuit and to dream and do the thing that they dreamed about.

I hope that service is a part of that, but I don't know. I mean, I'm with you, I know that the parents are the driving force behind it. I get a lot of guff, but if moms are saying no, the NFL goes away because moms are saying no because of traumatic brain injuries that people are experiencing, and that's happening.

 

>> Gil: Those numbers are way down.

>> Matt: Yeah, those numbers are down.

>> Jacquelyn: I am one of those moms.

>> Matt: Yes, if moms are saying no, it puts it at risk, it goes for football and for all volunteer forces. I don't know, I want them to be able to pursue their dreams, like what they care to do.

Not lame dreams, but good sturdy dreams, right?

>> Matt: Yeah.

>> Jacquelyn: There's a line here, right?

>> Matt: Yeah, you know what I mean?

>> Gil: And, Jack, let me toss in one more tiny thing. I think the fact that it is voluntary, that it's an opt-in thing, if you're a military veteran after 20 years of failed wars and maybe bad health care, not necessarily the VA's fault, and you're holding the bag for this, and you think this was the deal I got, do I want my kids to opt into this?

It's a choice, I want them carrying an unequal burden for the rest of the country. I think there's some of that.

>> Robin: I like that you said trust. I think it all comes down to, do I, as a mom, trust the integrator institution to protect my child and to give my child an experience that is worth their life?

Possibly, but my daughter is 13, and she likes to slam her door and tell me she needs her personal space. So if I could sign a waiver today, I would have.

>> Robin: You came out of my personal space. You can hire her in the Marine corps.

>> Jacquelyn: Well, I've been given the signal, which means that yoga is about to come in, which you guys are all welcome to join.

And so, very quickly, I didn't tell you guys this, I like to do a lightning round at the end where I ask both silly questions and very deep questions, and then give you five seconds to make a choice. So we're gonna go there. We start with you, Claudia.

So, MREs, these are meals ready to eat, or the ship's mess?

>> Claudia: Ship's mess.

>> Matt: Same question?

>> Jacquelyn: Yeah.

>> Matt: Ship's mess, and particularly if you're on a submarine, it's no finer cuisine.

>> Gil: I'm the world's worst marine. I spent one night on a navy ship and seven years active duty, did the sand, not the surf part, so I'll take MREs.

 

>> Robin: How dare I step on a navy ship?

>> Robin: MREs.

>> Jacquelyn: Okay.

>> Robin: Go Army, beat Navy.

>> Jacquelyn: All right, since we're in Colorado, and I'll start with you, Matt. Skiing, snowboarding, or aprè all day?

>> Matt: Skiing, definitely.

>> Jacquelyn: All right.

>> Gil: Yeah, I'm skiing tomorrow, yeah.

>> Robin: What all day?

 

>> Jacquelyn: Après, you just drink in the lodge all day.

>> Robin: I'm at the lodge bar, yeah.

>> Robin: For real.

>> Jacquelyn: Claudia?

>> Claudia: Skiing.

>> Jacquelyn: See, I think it's cuz we're all a little bit straight laced. I think that's why we all skiing and don't snowboard. Okay, yeah, we got the humor out of the way.

Should we reinstate the draft? We've kind of dealt with this, but what do you think, Claudia?

>> Claudia: Aye, aye, aye-

>> Jacquelyn: There's no equivocation, yes, no?

>> Claudia: Yes.

>> Jacquelyn: All right.

>> Matt: Yes, for teachers.

>> Jacquelyn: What a punch!

>> Gil: That's good. That's a crisis. Yeah, for training purposes, at least, if not actual service, maybe.

 

>> Jacquelyn: All right, Robin?

>> Robin: No.

>> Jacquelyn: Okay, all right, Robin, to start with you, favorite place to be stationed?

>> Robin: Weirdly enough, Fort Hood, Texas.

>> Jacquelyn: I'm from Texas, and I'm surprised.

>> Robin: Me, too, it was the unit, not the place.

>> Gil: I got spoiled. Camp Pendleton, I lived in San Diego most of the time.

 

>> Matt: Rhodes, Spain, that was the first place where I had a complete family. Like, all five of us were there together.

>> Claudia: I really can't answer that question. San Diego, I guess.

>> Jacquelyn: That's nice. Navy has such amazing locations. Everyone fusses about the air force, but really, it's the Navy.

Okay, last thing. We'll start with Gil this time and go to Robin and Beck. What is the one thing you want civilians to know about serving in the military?

>> Gil: I think just that it's not a movie, it's not constant danger, it's not no time to yourself. The civilian perceptions of the military are way out of whack.

It's not a totally different universe from being an almost civilian. Robin.

>> Robin: Women who serve in combat do not get special little lights on them that say that they're a woman. You're in combat, and to stop asking us, like, Did you surf in combat? It's not a linear battlefield.

They can't comprehend, they just think everybody's either on the front lines or not.

>> Jacquelyn: Matt.

>> Jacquelyn: Okay, all right, Claudia can have it. What is the one thing you want civilians to know about serving in the military?

>> Claudia: That are young men and women. I've seen them on the deck of a carrier.

They're amazing, they're strong, they're committed, they're dedicated, they're determined, and you're in good hands.

>> Jacquelyn: All right, Matt, you get to close it out. That'd be brilliant.

>> Matt: So, that we don't want to row alone. There's an expectation that if you're doing things in a service-related capacity, that you have an active citizenry that is trying really hard to make our country great.

>> Jacquelyn: So you don't wanna row alone or you don't wanna bowl alone?

>> Matt: Bowl alone, well.

>> Jacquelyn: Well, I wanna thank you all for coming, for being part of how we bowled together and built social capital today. We got to stop because we get yoga. But I think, is the bar open, too?

>> Speaker 1: Yeah.

>> Jacquelyn: But the bar is open as well.

>> Jacquelyn: And I wanna thank you all. You guys being here and listening is, I think, the biggest thing that this generation of veteran really wants. So thank you for joining us. And then, if any of you are in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, on March 7th, we will be there on March 7th.

>> Speaker 2: Chelmsford?

>> Jacquelyn: Chelmsford, we'll get some Dunkin. All right, thank you all.