Soup Sandwich
Welcome to Soup Sandwich, a podcast that explores the complex and compelling world of veterans in the United States. Through interviews with veterans themselves, military experts, and advocates, we'll dive deep into the issues that matter most to this community, from mental health and employment, to the history of veterans in the US and the future of military service. This podcast is supported by the generous contribution of the members of VFW Post 3033.
Soup Sandwich
Unraveling the Impact of Military Service on Veterans' Mental Wellness
Transitioning from military service to civilian life is a complex and challenging journey that many veterans face. Have you ever wondered how this major life change impacts mental health and wellbeing? Join Crysta and Brent, as we share our personal experiences navigating this transition and shed light on the importance of mental health support and treatment to help our fellow veterans through this process.
In this episode, we also explore how the military caters to fundamental human needs, as outlined in Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Discover how the military fulfills physiological, safety, psychological, and spiritual needs of service members and the impact of transitioning without the support of the military community. We emphasize the significance of individualism during this crucial period and compare our experiences in the military with those of our civilian peers.
As we discuss the unique life experiences and opportunities that our military service provided us, we reflect on how it shaped our perspectives differently from those who didn't serve. Tune in to this honest and insightful conversation on the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from military service to civilian life, and learn how we can better support veterans during this critical time in their lives.
Email Us with your comments and suggestions at vfwpost3033@gmail.com, we'd love to hear from you!
War is a paradox. It has the power to bring nations together, to inspire heroism and sacrifice and to forge bonds of camaraderie that will span a lifetime, but it also has the power to tear families apart, to shatter communities and to leave scars that will never fully heal. And, for those who have served, the transition back to civilian life can be one of the greatest challenges they will ever face. This is the typical life of military veterans, a world that is both familiar and foreign to most of us. It is a world that is shaped by unique experiences, values and traditions of the military, and by the sacrifices and struggles of those who have served, but it's also a world that is constantly changing, as new generations of veterans confront new challenges and new opportunities. Thank you for joining us at Soup Sandwich. Dig your foxhole, heat up your MRE and spend some time with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us at Soup Sandwich. My name is Brent. I'm your main host With me today. I've got Krista.
Speaker 3:Hi, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2:What we're going to be doing today is we're going to be chatting a little bit about transition from military service active military service to veteran life, All the interesting transition ups and downs that we've experienced and everything in between. But before we do that, we might as well introduce ourselves, since this is the first podcast episode, So I appreciate you being here and listening.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:So number one who are we? So I'll start, if you don't mind.
Speaker 3:How about it?
Speaker 2:As I said earlier, my name is Brent. I am a United States Navy veteran. I served as a hospital corpsman, achieving the rank of E4, petty officer third class, or hospital corpsman third class, if you will. I was active from 2010 to 2015, served about five and a half years on active service And from there I went from training to National Naval Medical Center, bethesda. While I was there, i was there during the transition from the namesake changed from National Naval Medical Center to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. So I was there during the transition and all the construction and everything. It was quite the experience.
Speaker 2:Once I finished my two years there, i left in 2012. I went to Pearl Harbor, hawaii, to Naval Health Clinic, hawaii. I served there from 2012 until 2015. While I was there, i picked up an individual augmentee deployment to the Middle East with ERSS team 11 that stands for Expeditionary Resuscitative Surgical System, team 11. And during that time I was essentially a mobile surgical team. That was me and, i believe, 12 other people, and we were able to stand up a fully operational surgical suite in around about 12 minutes. It was a pretty interesting feat to do So. Had a lot of fun with that. Returned back to Hawaii in 2013,. Excuse me, 2014. Finished out the last year or so of my service, finally culminating in May of 2015, where I got out and pursued higher education. So that's my experience. I'm going to turn it over to Krista and see what she's got for us.
Speaker 3:Hi, i'm Krista. I was in the Army for solid 13 years. I was a 68 whiskey or a healthcare specialist, more commonly known as the combat medic. Let's see. First duty station was at drum, right out of basic and AIT. From there I PCS'd to Camp Humphreys, south Korea, and that was a blast. I was for a good bit of the lone medic in the brigade, just teaching CLS class, giving shots, stealing blood, typical medic stuff. After that I ended up at Jablam Joint Base, lewis McCord, where I deployed to the RC South section of Afghanistan. That was fun.
Speaker 3:After that I PCS'd to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and became a prison medic. Oh, the stories I could tell for that. While I was there I had my son. And after that I PCS'd again to South Korea. This time I went to Young Sun, which was at the time transitioning from the med-ac headquarters, along with the South Korean headquarters being transitioned down to Pyong-Tek or Camp Humphreys. So I was there when Young Sun was transitioning to CLS, ets'd from the service out of Young Sun. From there I flew to Michigan, where I have been since.
Speaker 2:Okay, thanks for giving us a little bit of a background.
Speaker 3:Not a problem.
Speaker 2:As I mentioned earlier, the main topic of this episode is going to be what our transition was like from active service to the veteran lifestyle, all the difficulties and everything included. So for me specifically, i at first didn't feel like I had a tough time. My difficulties started when I started nursing school. What ended up happening was I discharged in May of 2015 and I took a summer job while I was waiting for school to start. But the first week of school I actually got word that a friend of mine had committed suicide, became part of the 22 a day that many are familiar with. If you are not familiar with that number 22 a day is derived from a report that happened a number of years ago, put out by the Department of Veterans Affairs, in which they estimated that the epidemic of suicide in the military community and the veteran community specifically amounted to about 22 veterans per day committing suicide for various reasons. So obviously that is indicative of difficulties with mental health, not being able to get support or therapy and treatment. There was a number of different reasons for that, but the difficulties that I began to face with my own mental health and everything in learning through therapy and treatment myself was that I had put a mental block in that initial summer. That initial three months or so between my discharge and starting school seemed to be normal, and what I have come to find out is that it wasn't. it was a mental block that I had put in while I was on active duty, and so what I ended up figuring out was that I had quite a few issues that needed to be dealt with, and my first semester of nursing school I actually dropped out and later ended up finishing up a bachelor's degree in health administration. So I did end up getting to the finish line. It took me a semester or two, longer than I had expected, but I did get there.
Speaker 2:During that time it was a hot mess, to say the least, and so that's what this episode is about is transition and what that means. And so, as most people know, when you start military service, you go to boot camp, which in the Navy we call it recruit training command. The Army probably calls it something else, but everybody knows the term boot camp. And so during boot camp, you that's your basic training. That is the basic training you learn to be a Marine or an airman or a soldier or a sailor or a Coast Guardsman. That's where you go to learn the basics, and so when they do that, they change almost everything about you. It is a purposeful transition of you as an individual civilian into a team-oriented mindset on every level that you can imagine. What do you think, krista? You mean is?
Speaker 2:that a pretty apt description.
Speaker 3:That is a very apt description. You go from being an individual to being part of one whole. So basic. they teach you how to get along with your coworkers, your fellow service members. They teach you how to think like a service member instead of how to think like a punk high school kid or Ignore the things that don't matter and focus on the things that do Exactly You learn how to take orders and not question everything.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because there comes a time where orders might come down and if you question them in the moment, You'll get hemmed up. Well, not only that, but if you're downrange and you're out there on deployment in an active combat zone, that delay could mean life and death.
Speaker 3:Not just for you, but for others.
Speaker 2:Exactly, And I know how crazy that sounds, I know how we just went from one end of the spectrum to the other, but that's the reality of it. I mean, that's what life is like in a combat zone. You don't know what is coming, what is around you and what tomorrow is going to bring. And here's the kicker if tomorrow even comes.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:So that is what they mold you into. They tear your individualism down and build it back up into the building blocks of you being a building block of the team.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's why, in most cases, you will see veterans come out and they are very team oriented And they are just very matter of fact and direct in their actions because that's what they've known for however many years that they've been on active duty.
Speaker 3:How you learn how to communicate.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Communication obviously is key. So you learn the basics of fighting. I know we will go down this particular road of experiences in boot camp and what you learn in later episodes. You know you learn weapons handling and you learn basic movements and all of that. But under all of those layers of different things, what you will find is it really boils down to everybody is trained to the same degree And so, as many might know, the Marine Corps saying every Marine a rifleman.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter what your MOS is. And if you're not familiar with what MOS is, it is military occupational service code. So, as Krista mentioned earlier, she was 68 whiskey. That is uniquely Army. The Navy has similar MOS codes, but we call them NECs Go Army beat Navy, go Navy beat Army. And so Navy has NECs which are equivalent. But regardless, those differences are minute. But we digress, sorry.
Speaker 2:Moving back on track here, the initial experience always will be boot camp And that experience is second to none and most of us have an in carry stories from boot camp from years ago because it was such a defining moment for us. So that's the big one. And from that part let's talk a little bit about TAPS class. Let's explain what TAPS is. It may go by a different name based on what branch of military you were in or something, but for those who don't know, taps class stands for transition assistance program, and that is the class that you have to go through when you get towards the end of your military career. So this is the part where you learn how to transition back into civilian life. It teaches you all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:For my experience personally, we had a representative come in from the Department of Labor. They taught us how to use LinkedIn and set up a LinkedIn account so we could professionally network on social media. They taught us how to build resumes, how to write them. The important terms and everything that we needed to know go from there. So that was, for the most part, a very short description of my experience. Did you have any other specific experiences in your TAPS class?
Speaker 3:Kind of So. Like I stated earlier, my TAPS or SFL, soldier for Life is. They are basically going on how, once you leave the service, you are considered an ambassador for the US military, So whatever you do basically reflects on the service once you're out. They also went over college applications programs that are available to the service members and to the family members after transitioning out, trying to give us all kinds of information and sources for after service. Of course, it depends on how prepared your instructors are. My instructors were. They tried their hardest, but when you're on a post that's closing down and you're stuck in a building that has no internet capabilities and majority of the classes are via internet, it doesn't really work out too well.
Speaker 2:That would have been an interesting paradigm. You know, you're in the middle of getting out and the base you're on is shutting down. That would have been interesting.
Speaker 3:Ah, such a promise.
Speaker 2:But you know that brings up, you know, transitioning from the TAPS class. Initially, the thought that came to my mind was I mean, i guess it's hard to explain it without just jumping right in, but what would you say about your transition specific to your experiences with what you've lost? So I'll start by saying this I learned this shortly after I got out, ironically in the college courses that I mentioned earlier. But back in the 20th century there was a well-known psychologist by the name of Abraham Maslow. Some may be very familiar with his hierarchy of needs. I'll go over that here in just a minute.
Speaker 2:So what Abraham Maslow did was he wrote a paper in 1943 titled A Theory of Human Motivation, and it was published in the Psychological Review Journal. That was probably one of his most defining moments. He is well known for his hierarchy of needs because it really hits the nail on the head as to an individual and exactly how they experience life. The questions that his hierarchy of needs answered is what are we really after? What are we long for? Who, rather, excuse me, how do we arrange the priorities in giving due attention to the things that matter first? And what was unique that came to my mind was that the needs that the military provided you actually satisfy the first two levels of Maslow's hierarchy. So for those of us old enough to remember the food pyramid and learning that in school, I don't know if they teach that anymore.
Speaker 2:Oh, they do, but I think it's in the form of a plate now. It's healthy portions or something, and instead of a food pyramid it's a plate Like retoddlers. Kind of like a pie chart They use the plate as a pie chart.
Speaker 3:Retoddlers.
Speaker 2:Good Lord, but you know, in a pyramid you first initially start with your physiological needs. So this level, think of it as the basics Your need to breathe, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep These are the things that you physiologically need in order to maintain your health. The next level is your safety and security. So think of things like your health, employment, your property, your home, family and social ability. So if you think about these things, i want to raise specific attention to our combined medical experience, because in the military there's no such thing as health insurance. I mean, i guess there is because there's tri-care and there's different.
Speaker 2:You know that was more so in the background, though and as an active duty corpsman, I never really dealt with any of that. It was done for us But it was done for us, But there was a structure that supported that aspect of it. but I digress.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, our day-to-day lives, where, as civilians, you know, we get a job and we get health insurance, and that's how it works In the military. That's not how it worked. It became necessary for day-to-day life. I guess, you know, it was kind of out of sight, out of mind. But when you get to that point of transition, when you're getting out of the military, it's one of the things that comes up to your mind where, oh my gosh, i'm leaving the military, i no longer have health coverage.
Speaker 3:Life insurance.
Speaker 2:Right. So you know, and I'll give myself as an example despite that, i didn't need to. I elected to get my wisdom teeth removed when I was still on active duty because they weren't giving me any problems and I never. Most Navy veterans will tell you that they got their wisdoms removed in boot camp. I did not. My wisdoms were unique. When they did the X-rays, they were nowhere near causing me any issues, so they just left mine alone And so I didn't need to remove them.
Speaker 2:Fast forward four and a half years and I'm about to get out of the Navy and I still wasn't having any issues. But I still elected to get them removed because, god forbid, it would be my luck if I did not have bad luck. I'd have no luck at all. So if I would have gotten out with my wisdoms, i guarantee you I would have had an issue and had to get it fixed, and I don't have dental insurance, you know. So something to think about on that. So, but that's just one example of many right? So we make friends all over the world, while we are uniquely accustomed to saying goodbye to our friends every two to three years when we each do a PCS move. And for those who don't understand a PCS that is a permanent change of station. So you change your duty station from wherever you were to wherever you're going, and so my transition from the hospital in Maryland, in Bethesda, maryland, was a PCS move to the clinic in Hawaii, naval Health Clinic, hawaii.
Speaker 2:So but going back on track here, those are the first two levels of Maslow's hierarchy And they are the physical and material needs of an individual in order to maintain their life, maintain their lifestyle. Moving up from there goes into the realm of the psychological and spiritual needs. So the next level up is love and belonging. Some of the things in this level, such as friendship, family intimacy and a sense of connection some of those as well are covered in your military service, especially if you're a higher ranking enlisted member.
Speaker 2:You go a longer period of time in the military but don't quite make it to the 20 year retirement mark. Maybe you have started a family and moved off base and have those things, but now you're moving to not having those, not having the health insurance for your family, not having that support underneath you. So that's the third level. The fourth level is self esteem, things like confidence, achievement, respect of others, the need to be a unique individual. So, as I said earlier, we in boot camp we are. Our individualism is torn down and rebuilt back up in a teamwork aspect, while that is very true for the majority experience in the military. I mean, what do you think, krista? I mean it's, you're still an individual, you're not a mindless machine.
Speaker 3:I think it's easier for the younger service members who are entering to transition, compared to someone who's already in their thirties, to go from a single person mindset to group mindset.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And so when you're thinking of the need to be a unique individual, you know, unless you're deployed, i would argue for the most part I think it's, it's pretty normal life. I mean, you're not on the clock 24 seven there. You do have liberty, you know Navy calls it Liberty time, but you're free time after work, you clock out, you go to the gym, you go out to eat, you know, and depending on where you are and the needs of your command that you're assigned to, i had weekends off for the most part, unless I had to pull duty, and that was only, if I recall correctly, one weekend a month.
Speaker 2:But that differs. Everybody's individual, you know, experience differs, i think. But finalizing this hierarchy of needs with the final step which is self-actualization, so think of things like morality, creativity, spontaneity, acceptance, experience of the experience of purpose as an individual, what you are destined to do. You know your individual meaning and your inner potential. So I would argue I shouldn't say the word argue, but I would say not knowing what you want to be when you grow up.
Speaker 3:Essentially what you want to be when you're a civilian.
Speaker 2:Exactly, is essentially what that self-actualization is all about. So Maslow argued that these were core to an individual's personality, and Maslow himself he lived from 1908 until 1970. Living to your full potential and becoming who we really are on the inside is a very difficult thing to do. When we get to the point where we get out of the military and do that full transition, we're thinking about what we want to be when we grow up, despite the fact that we are in our mid-20s. Typically at this point, the majority of us correct me if I'm wrong, krista what age would you say most get out of the military? I would say it's about mid-20s.
Speaker 3:I'd say mid to late 20s. Most service members do their four years or six years and call it quits.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, i would agree with that, and you have to understand that the paradigm about this is you're in your mid to late 20s The people you went to high school with. They've already gone to college. They've probably purchased the first house. They've probably already started a family. By this point, your average veteran is behind the curve, and that was something I struggled with with my mental health was I saw all these people that I went to high school with. I knew a guy who I went to high school with, who rose the ranks at FedEx and ended up being in sales at FedEx. I was incredibly proud of him to see how he's climbed that ladder. But here I am, at 25 years old, not having achieved anything so much as a college certificate.
Speaker 3:My experience was a little different. I noticed that most of my friends from high school they had completed college, they had a job, they had families, but they are still stuck in the same mind frame, especially if they had never really left their town, much less their state. Versus most of the service members that I met, their minds are expanded. They understand the bigger picture in a lot of different things. They've experienced foreign countries they've experienced walking on foreign soil.
Speaker 3:They may be behind when it comes to debt or owning a home or having the college experience, but unfortunately that's the difference. Civilians they've started on their life, but they're still in the same mind frame. Service members they can see a much larger, bigger picture.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I think about the game of life. Remember the board game.
Speaker 3:I love that game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so remember at the beginning of the game of life where you have to choose to either go directly towards a career or go to college. Thinking about that game. Going directly to a career is kind of like doing the long way around, right So, where our friends would go to college and do all of that. We go to college and it's not a head start, it's not a jump start. So it reminds me so much of that paradigm of some of us. Do a head start In the board game. It's go to college, get a head start. In our experience we joined the military and got a head start because we went directly to the experiences rather than college and learned all that stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's probably more people in the military who have shot major weapons systems, tanks, missile launchers, things of that nature, depending on what they did for a job while they were in Things that their peers at high school could only dream of doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i know most of my high school peers never left the state, much less the country. Meanwhile, i've been to at least three foreign countries.
Speaker 2:And that, speaking of which, that was something that I have learned is that, in the persona of many colleges around the country, there is a push for students to learn specific things, such as my college called it diversity in society. They wanted to put a spotlight on differences of culture and because I was a military veteran who had been on a deployment and have seen other countries, i didn't have to take that class. So yeah, and that was the caveat at my college was, if you're a military veteran without a deployment, you'd still have to take the class.
Speaker 3:That suckers, so that's what I thought too.
Speaker 2:Now, that might be different from from the college to college. That's obviously not, you know, set in stone anywhere that I know of. But that was interesting. And now that you mention it, i just want to mention that my deployment took me to seven different countries. I've been to Djibouti, bahrain, kuwait, greece, italy and Portugal. That's six, i'm sorry. So, yeah, i've been to six different countries. On that deployment We were to go to, there was a potential chance that I could have gone to the Seychelles. It ended up not happening. So, anyway, my military service crosses, you know, two hemispheres in six different countries, and man.
Speaker 2:I want to go and see those countries again. You know, especially Italy. I love Italy, italy is beautiful. The old marketing slogan of the Navy was accelerate your life.
Speaker 3:I remember those badass commercials, you know, and I'm like oh yeah, that was from what The mid 2000s, yeah, mid 2000s, oh memories I want to do?
Speaker 2:accelerate my life, you know. So I graduate high school in 2009 and end up joining the Navy directly out of school. So, but my experience was a little bit different too. Jumping back to my introduction real quick, because I forgot something here.
Speaker 3:I have at it.
Speaker 2:You know I during my high school time I was actually a member of the United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps. For those of you who don't know and who actually might be interested, i'm giving a. This is not a sponsored ad or anything, but I am a former Sea Cadet And I'm a proud former C-Cadet. It is an amazing program And if you have any youngsters between the ages of 10 and 17 who want to get a taste of military life with no requirement to serve in the military afterwards, c-cadets is a really great program. I digress from my little plug there. I love the C-Cadets.
Speaker 2:I'll always support them. That was so awesome. So anyway, as a former C-Cadet, a perk to the program was that after boot camp I was meritoriously promoted to E3.
Speaker 3:Ooh fancy.
Speaker 2:So I came into the Navy as an E3 hospitalman And so it was quite the experience And so because of that prior experience it was pretty much in set in stone where I was going. At that point in time I think I graduated high school with a 2.16 GPA. I am not bragging, i promise.
Speaker 3:But the reality was I just hated high school.
Speaker 2:I hated it. It was not something I was interested in, i just wanted to move on, so there was no way I was going to college right away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel like it. I think I barely graduated by the skin of my teeth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we went. Sounds like we both went directly to the military after high school.
Speaker 3:The same month I turned 18 and graduated high school. I was in basic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I had to wait a little bit of time in the delayed entry. But from my experience, in addition to that, I am third generation Navy, So my grandfather was a machinist mate. My excuse me, my father was a machinist mate, My grandfather was a gunner's mate in the Navy And my grandfather was World War II veteran. So a lot of pride in patriotism, the reasons for why I joined and that I hated school and I didn't want to go. But those are the main reasons for me And because of my experience in the Sea Cadets, which, now that I think about it, will be an episode in a future podcast.
Speaker 3:Wouldn't be a bad idea.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, in a future podcast, it's going to be this podcast, not a future podcast, it's going to be this one.
Speaker 3:Just not this episode. Right, just not this episode. So stay tuned.
Speaker 2:That'll be upcoming here pretty soon, but anyway. so what are you in closing?
Speaker 3:do you have any specific things that you want to call out that maybe I haven't gone over, or Well, you mentioned a lot about the TAP program but you didn't actually mention too much actually exiting the service. So the SFL TAP tries to prepare you the best it can about life after service, how you can get all these benefits and connect to these programs, But it still doesn't really prepare you for leaving the service.
Speaker 2:As.
Speaker 3:I went from structure, comradeship, all that to suddenly gone. I landed stateside from South Korea And suddenly I had no one to report to, which was the first time for me as an inner. I was an adult, 31 years old, and never been fully in charge of myself. That was scary, just shocking.
Speaker 2:That was scary.
Speaker 3:So I went from having everything provided to me, because the service treats you like a kid. They give you housing, they give you money for food, they give you health care, health insurance, and all of it stops. You are on your own And for someone who joined the service straight out of high school not even a month of being 18, it was shocking.
Speaker 2:And you know something Now that you say that. What's interesting is I've had this conversation I couldn't tell you countless times with friends and family. You hear a lot about people enlisting in the military and getting sign on bonuses, enlistment bonuses like the assholes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, not everybody gets those, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah not everyone Entirely depends on if they need you in that specific role. But I could tell you Hospital Corman, no, never, never get those.
Speaker 2:Unless you're in specific disciplines. But the ideas that we came up with some of my friends and I came up with was sure, keep enlistment bonuses. I mean, i'm not saying that there's not a place for those, but an interesting idea that, hey, department of Defense, if you're out there listening I'm going to give you. I'm going to throw you a bone here. How about post-enlistment bonuses? Give $10,000 or $20,000 post-enlistment bonus If that person and give it to him in a form of an investment treasury bond or a.
Speaker 2:CD or something. Let it accrue interest over time. If they decide to re-enlist a couple of times or even retire, it doesn't matter, because, at the end of the day, what that money can do, especially after it has matured over time. A person in our shoes, for you, at 31 years old and not having anything, if you would have had a $25,000 post-enlistment bonus, guess what? That's a pretty good, sizable down payment on a house.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Or a down payment for an apartment to get you immediately on your feet again.
Speaker 3:Savings until you find a job.
Speaker 2:Right, if you don't want to do that, maybe allow us to cash in our benefits. Hey, i need some money right now. Give me the equivalent of two months of my GI bill in cash so I can go get an apartment or buy a car. I mean, the possibilities and the reasons for it are endless. But those are just some ideas. Like when we get out of the military, the transition isn't really a transition, it's just abrupt, it stops.
Speaker 3:It stops everything, everything is done, everything.
Speaker 2:The curtain is called The fat lady has sung And you're done, we're shoved out of the plane. And I mean that's going to get into a topic that we can cover in another episode of how much we miss military service afterwards.
Speaker 3:Like you, know Some of the things, some of the things, some of the things, some of the things.
Speaker 2:Not all of it. We'll talk about that in another episode too, But especially the camaraderie. though We get transitioned out either voluntarily, like we want to get out, or involuntary. Some of us get injured and we have to leave service. We're no longer able to deploy, we're no longer able to serve our country in that way. That's rough, super rough And again a topic for another episode, but to be forcibly shoved out of the military.
Speaker 3:With very little time to plan.
Speaker 2:Very little time to plan. Even worse if you have a wife and a kid. Oh yeah, if you've got family, if you've got. Whatever the case might be, we're definitely going to be talking about those topics at a later time And as we transition to the close here, krista, i want to highlight some of the episodes. I'm just going to name off a few. And how about you name off a few And just give them a taste of what's coming?
Speaker 3:OK, OK.
Speaker 2:All right, so upcoming here. On the next episode we're probably going to have Krista again. She's going to discuss the experiences of women veterans and some of the unique challenges that they face. We're going to discuss war trauma, ptsd, mental health and the impact of that on veterans and their families, and also how that sometimes connects to individuals who are still on active duty who have had several combat deployments and maybe physically are still able to serve, but mentally are in a very dark place and what that might look like.
Speaker 2:we're going to discuss the role of community support and advocacy and helping us access resources and support services, because I can guarantee you that your average veteran, if you pulled them, i would argue that they probably wouldn't be able to tell you heads or tails what services are out there.
Speaker 3:Uh-huh, let's see, we could also. We're also going to go over the history of veterans' rights and the evolution of veterans' services and support programs, um the experiences of disabled veterans specifically, and the challenges they face in accessing healthcare and other benefits. That one's a big one.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:The impact of military service on mental health and well-being and the importance of addressing mental health needs for veterans, specifically addressing them.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 3:Not just talking about it, but making sure that what is discussed actually happens. The follow-through.
Speaker 2:Right. The follow-through is important.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:You can throw all kinds of darts at the wall, but if they fall down nothing happens. You've got to get them to stick.
Speaker 3:You could talk all you want, but if there's no action made, then it does nothing.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely, and we're going to have an entire series called Reflections, where I'm going to do personal interviews of veterans, a complete, full, deep dive into their enlistment or, if the person is an officer, you know, i'm going to talk to them about that, so that'll be a separate series within Soup Sandwich as a podcast. We're going to have a series called Reflections, um, and then, finally, we're going to talk about experiences of veterans in different conflicts from World War II, vietnam, the Gulf War, iraq and Afghanistan and how their experiences differ, the role that family and caregivers play in supporting veterans and helping them navigate the transition And, finally, some experiences of homeless and at-risk veterans and the efforts that the VA has been doing to address homelessness among veterans. I've heard some good things about that, actually, so I'm looking forward to that one to see our brothers and sisters who are lost. We need to make sure that we help them. But that's going to be it for us today. Thank you for joining us again.
Speaker 3:My name is Brent, i'm Krista.
Speaker 2:And we're going to be back again soon, very, very shortly. We're looking forward to it. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us at Soup Sandwich, a podcast that explores the complex and compelling world of veterans in the United States. Through interviews with veterans themselves, military experts and advocates will dive deep into the issues that matter most to this community, from mental health and employment to the history of the US military, the future of military service and everything in between. Whether you're a veteran yourself, a spouse or family member of a veteran, or simply interested in learning more about this community, this podcast is for you. So come with us on a journey into the heart of the veteran experience and discover the stories, struggles and triumphs that have shaped our nation's brave after they've returned home.