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I'll talk to guys all the time but I don't advertise my veteran status unless there is a reason.
Now Moe's and Lowe's are two pretty good reasons but you just show your id nomsayin?
Another suggestion is doing something team related. After I retired from the Navy, I worked offshore in the oilfields for 9 years. I had my crew and we worked as a team to keep our ROV ready to work at anytime. Some of those guys and I formed bonds similar to the Navy and although we no longer work together, we stay in touch.
Another thing I do is furniture instalation. We are all independent contractors. On the bigger gigs we'll have 4 to 14 guys.We ride together, eat together, have a roommate and everybody knows what they are doing. Well oiled machine.
http://havokjournal.com/nation/message-rip-instructor/
A Message from Your RIP Instructor
November 18, 2016 by Brandon Young
A Message from Your RIP Instructor:
Your conditioning saved you in combat, but it may bury you in life.
by Brandon Young
After countless hours of freezing rain, bitter cold and the cut of the ruck on my shoulders it finally happened: I let go of my illusions that the situation would ever improve.
I embraced my indoctrination as a Ranger and entered into a brotherhood of shared sacrifice and violence on the fringe of American society. Many years later I peered at the formation of young Ranger hopefuls in the same field, under the same vicious sting of a Cole Range winter and smiled as the herd thinned itself naturally. “See the woodline? Touch it!”
We talk of Brotherhood all the time. Brotherhood is belonging. Brotherhood is family. Brotherhood is anytime, anywhere. So what can we learn when one of our family, one of our brothers takes his own life?
Surely, we must take stock and learn something. We talk about the depth of our bond forged of long nights and moments best forgotten, but are we hiding a shallow truth in plain sight from one another? Are we really being honest with each other? Are we truly sharing how we feel inside?
Sometimes I think not.
What are we so afraid of?
I think shame is what we are all hiding in plain sight. Shame that we are not good enough, strong enough, “Ranger” enough. Shame to admit that we are not “ok”. That we are struggling with emotions that won’t stop swelling inside us and shame from our inability to silence our thoughts from the still of our comfortable homes (though we were capable of quelling them during the battle overseas).
We were taught to silence our emotions in order to execute in combat, to operate in a zero defect environment. We were taught to be indomitable, bulletproof, invincible: invulnerable. And here today, with all that training and experience, it’s just not working anymore. Today we have become unable to silence the storms inside, unable to stop the memories and we are ashamed of our inability to “suck it up and drive on”.
I know the struggle well, our indoctrination was precise and the approach was intentional.
As a former RIP Instructor (Ranger Indoctrination Program), my role was specific and our approach was exact: create killers. Un-feeling, un-yielding destroyers capable of operating and leading under the most intense emotional and physical stress imaginable.
The physical part, that was easy. The emotional and mental parts, that was the trick. The culmination of our approach was numbness or compartmentalization: indifference.
Indifference was achieved when no matter how bad, no matter how much it hurt (how terrified or miserable) you executed with exact aggression on target. Precise violence of action.
Indifference was critical to your ability to perform on target. To be physically, emotionally and mentally willing to enter a building and clear a room knowing full well that on the other side awaits an enemy ready to kill you is not normal. Face this fact right now. To combat the terror of a life stepping into the breach, you have been conditioned to ignore your emotions. Taught to excuse the fear, the pit in your stomach, taught to harness the adrenaline coursing through your veins and focus all your being into acts of unprecedented and calculated violence.
Here’s what we didn’t teach you: how to stop being indifferent. How to feel again.
How after embracing a culture of violence, there is on the other side a lifetime of peace, should you choose to accept it. A life of home. I fear this is killing us. Literally. Killing our families, our friendships, our coveted brotherhood and our communities as we kill ourselves. We bought into a necessary reality for the days when we stood in the breach, but today at home in America, we hang on to a lie: you must be indomitable, still.
Vulnerability is not weakness. While antithetical to your training as a war fighter, in life, vulnerability equates to strength.
Anger, fear, shame, uncertainty, pride, regret, joy and sadness. These are emotions. You are feeling again. This is normal. Welcome home. Now let’s get to work.
Let’s cut the crap. Start being honest with ourselves and with each other. Call that buddy of yours, but do it with a spirit of vulnerability. Author Brene Brown talks a great deal about vulnerability, citing shame as the major barrier for living “whole heartedly”, or with a spirit of vulnerability and openness.
I think we may be ashamed of our humanity and the emotions we wrestle with today: days, months and years after living a life of abandon. We stay in our “box” after service and generally live with an attitude appropriate to when our job required us to be strong in austere environments on the periphery of society.
Why do we still do this after service? Because we don’t know how to come home.
“We all pay for it. At some point, we will all pay the price.” I shared these words with my squad at “pool PT” (breakfast at Hawks Prairie restaurant) after we returned from Afghanistan our second time in 2003. Many of us were feeling uneasy around our community, out of place. Different.
Emotion is a human function. You can learn how to compartmentalize it, to ignore it, but it will not go away. From the most senior men in the formation to the lowest private, we are all people. All of us wrestle with emotions thought to be long forgotten. We have an insidious lie tearing into the fabric of our community. The façade, the lie, is that you have to be a stone-hard, emotionless killer to be “in”. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted with it. If buying this lie every day is required to be “in,” then I’m out. I think we are scared to admit that we are hurting, that we don’t know how to fight what’s going on inside our hearts and our heads.
That we can’t figure out how to engage with our loved ones, that we can’t say “I’m sorry” or “I don’t know.” That if we admit it, we are weak and worthless. No longer worthy of our place within this brotherhood. I think we’ve become afraid to say, “help, please.”
“I don’t need help. I’m fine. Everyone else is wrong, nobody gets me and I will figure it out myself.” These and other lies we tell ourselves are the ones that are killing us...
If one sentence resonates with you, I hope you take action. Have a real conversation today, be honest and be prepared to be “seen”. Also, know the five signs of someone in emotional pain. Get out of your house and engage with your brothers, with others in your community. If needed, here are a list of resources that can help:
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
help:
Remember to play!
Do the right thing, whether anyone is watching or not.
Be married, until you are not.
Email address: angeline.greenwood@att.net
M.A.P. - http://marriedmansexlife.vanillaforums.com/discussion/13574/pen-and-swords-map
That being the case, I feel like my time in posting the article was well spent.
They don't all resent it, @Pen_and_Sword. And while I can't speak for all of them, I think only a minority actually do, if any actually do. A lot of people who have served will say that they resent it, but they are more likely embarrassed, and really do appreciate it. They just aren't about to admit it, as they don't want to admit to having a feeling. Embarrassment isn't usually an "acceptable" feeling to own up to in the community of warriors, and as you have read, not something that warriors want to admit to themselves. Admitting to having any feelings other than unit pride is a quasi-taboo thing, as you have likely gathered from what I have written and what I have posted.
I personally am touched when people thank me for my service, and it means a lot to me. I can't think of a single friend or guy I know that has served that hasn't privately said that they feel the same way. I will tell people that it was actually my pleasure to have served, and thank them in return for their appreciation. Not everyone is as verbally adept when caught by surprise, or they can have their own hangups.
It can seem trite when people say it as a reflex, and don't seem genuine in their expression. That gets a little annoying, but still, it is appreciated.
Also, it can get to be a pain in navigating daily life if anytime your status, former status or claim to fame gets mentioned, you have to contend with a sea of people wanting to thank you for your service. It gets a little embarrassing.
I relate it to what I deal with in my current job on occasion. My business is involved in several different industries, and in some of them, I am considered a big fish in a small pond. I sometimes receive the celebrity or rock star treatment where people don't treat me like a regular guy and want to fawn over me or kiss ass. That gets really old very quickly. I'm not that guy. I enjoy and desire to be treated with respect, but I don't like people being obsequious.
It can become uncomfortable and embarrassing when people don't let up with the celebrity-craze, and it makes getting things done or having a regular conversation that much harder. I honestly don't know how people can handle being real celebrities 24/7 without losing their minds. I don't think I would be able to stand it. When people thanking you or fawning over you with the, "We are not worthy" approach becomes a detriment to just living life, it gets old.
One way you can get around the thank you issue is to show your thanks in non-verbal ways. In the community of warriors, be it military, police, fire, etc., alcohol drinks are one of the ways guys express their feelings without stating them. You might not actually verbalize a thank you to someone, you show it by buying drinks for the person you want to give your thanks to. It is an etiquette thing.
I will often without making a fuss, quietly flag down a server and pay for the meals or a round of drinks for military personnel who I see wearing combat patches or awards when I see them in restaurants or bars. The server inevitably tells the recipients, and they always make a beeline to me to thank me for having done that for them. I will tell them it was my pleasure to show my thanks for what they have done. I have actually ended up with a rather large military unit patch collection this way, incidentally.
I was invited to participate in a Presidential Inauguration, and the hotel I was staying at had a ton of cops from around the country brought in to work the inauguration staying there. Also at the hotel were the members of the Congressional Medal of Honor Association--all of the guys who had earned the MOH that could attend. It was one hell of a unique event, as I got to hang out in the hotel bar each evening and meet a large number of Medal of Honor recipients.
Those guys never paid for a drink while they were there. Every cop and military member present had these guys covered. That is how admiration and appreciation is expressed. The MOH recipients were the most down to earth guys you could meet. They didn't like having people kiss their ass, and when someone would start doing that, or calling them, "Sir.", they would tell the person fawning over them to relax, and would also say, "knock it off with that Sir bullshit. Call me Mike." Every one of those guys insisted that they did not deserve the MOH that they were wearing. That bar was a microcosm of the whole issue of the etiquette of showing appreciation to warriors.
I didn't mean to write a novel, but related things kept flowing. Sorry for the long read.
TL;DR, Most probably really don't mind being thanked, but might say or indicate that they do, and there is an etiquette to doing so that those who would have no way of knowing what it is can unintentionally violate.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
ymmv
Remember to play!
Do the right thing, whether anyone is watching or not.
Be married, until you are not.
Email address: angeline.greenwood@att.net
If somebody is kind enough to say thank you then I'll give them a sincere and kind response.
Most of the time nobody would ever know that I'm a vet unless they are next to me in line.
Yes I'll admit that I will take some perks here and there but I didn't seek them out. They are just policies of those particular businesses.
My thought is if they are going to be gracious enough to offer then I should be polite enough to accept.
No different than somebody offering you a beverage in their house. It's rude to turn it down.
We know that not many people can do what we've done and we sometimes are confused with our past ourselves. It's just awkward.
M.A.P. - http://marriedmansexlife.vanillaforums.com/discussion/13574/pen-and-swords-map
The way I see it, I got to choose to be the first person in my dad's family to graduate college and have a professional career because thousands of other men gave up that choice and stood on the perimeter instead. I can't not take that personally.
M.A.P. - http://marriedmansexlife.vanillaforums.com/discussion/13574/pen-and-swords-map
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
How will you live well today?
It still kills me to hear about friends deploying into harm's way or see and hear an emergency vehicle going Code 3, lights and siren, hauling ass to something and not be part of it.
It kinda gets baked into your DNA. Tennee and I had a PM discussion about the Life, and how it becomes an addiction that is probably as strong as Heroin or Cocaine, and just as bad for you mentally. An adrenaline addiction. I had women I dated say that they felt like they were competing with a mistress who had far more power over me than they ever could. It isn't just what you do. It becomes who you are.
It consumed my mind, and was damn near impossible to focus on the rest of mundane life. Regular life becomes like living with the colors muted, smells lessened, taste killed, and the volume turned down to 1.
It consumes you and eats you alive from the inside psychologically (and somewhat physically from wear and tear) like a malignant cancer. As detrimental as it is to your psyche, it remains the only thing that will scratch an itch deep in your core that might lessen with time away from it, but never will completely go away.
When I chose to leave it for a more lucrative and sane field of work, I missed it terribly, and suffered from a depressive longing that took a long time to recede to a more tolerable level. I hid the funk I was in pretty well, I think, but it sucked horribly.
I would go back in an instant if I were physically capable of doing so now that my kids are launched, even knowing how insidious to the spirit it is. One powerful addiction. To this day I miss it.
There is a quote from Hemingway that I and my compatriots have shared for a long time. It sums up the call to the Life succinctly:
There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
The more you can stay involved with the guys, the better.
I moved cross country the times I got out, and once you aren't seeing the guys on a regular basis, you fall off the radar. They will answer the phone and be glad to talk to you, but they generally don't call. Out of hundreds of guys that I would have taken a bullet for, and vice versa, or gone into the most unstable structure to save them solo without a RIT Team and screw what the bosses said and vice versa, and had that incredible brothership with, I only had 2 that ever called me after I left their radar screens. That is why the pshrinks always recommend that you work hard at cultivating and maintaining civilian friendships.
And as time goes on, you don't have the new shared sacrifices and experiences, so you become less relevant to the ongoing events and changes.
You are still considered one of them, but it is different.
The worst thing is when everyone you know has left or retired and you don't know any of the new guys.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
I feel it's less the particular function, some people simply adapt to the environment and feel that's where they are very effective.
Not to stray to far O/T, but this is possibly germane to Leo as the OP here. @ffp20
I've seen a lot of this, a lot. And I will tell you now, start making sure your identity is not part and parcel to a badge/turnout bag/uniform/deployment status. I have seen this end very badly, more than once. A lot more. I'll spare y'all the horror stories.
I once posted something in response to The_Dude [He's out there BTW, taking it easy for all us sinners] about my anger issues. I wondered if I didn't substitute Anger - which has a massive chemical injection of its own - as a substitute for my adrenaline fix when I left. Because it was a huge, massive adrenaline hit. I loved helping people, I loved helping to make things right. And I loved, loved, loved the energy from it. Because you feel like Superman - not a fucking thing can go wrong. Until it does, of course.
I can't speak for the Mil aspect here. But for me, I have to frame it like this: "It was a job". You have to think like that, or you'll explode. It was a job. An important job. A vital job. Maybe an altering-the-course-of-history job. But it was a job. It was not me, it was my part-time avocation. I'm me, and I'm a whole lot more than a job I had a while ago.
How will you live well today?
@ffp20 It might never stop being part of who you are, but what you do is declare to yourself that it is only going to be PART of who you are, and that you are going to be more.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC