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Episode 195: Jonathan Lu. A Green Beret's Path to Academia
Discover the incredible journey of Jonathan Lu, a Green Beret transitioning from military service into a higher-education career. Learn how a chance encounter with a Green Beret set Jonathan on a path of relentless self-improvement and excellence. From his early days as an army combat medic to facing the challenges of deployments and traumatic brain injuries, Jonathan shares how his 18 Delta training and passion for medical education have driven him to pursue a bachelor's degree to train future healthcare professionals.
Uncover the unique resourcefulness and adaptability inherent in being a Green Beret. Jonathan's stories of managing communications and pursuing education while deployed highlight the ingenious solutions he employed, like using Google and VPN software to overcome technological limitations. This episode is a testament to the value of balancing full-time military duties with academic endeavors, showcasing how the skills honed in the military are highly transferable to civilian life and can lead to success in various fields.
Join us as Jonathan opens up about the difficulties of balancing military service, family responsibilities, and higher education. Hear firsthand about the critical role of spousal support, the importance of self-care, and the necessity of sometimes pausing academic pursuits during high-stress periods. Jonathan's journey of self-identity and healing provides profound insights into the struggles of losing a defining role and the importance of self-advocacy in health and wellness. This episode celebrates the courage to pursue new professional paths with audacity and confidence, making it a compelling narrative of success and fulfillment post-military life.
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Produced by Security Halt Media
security hot podcast. Let's go with a man who's the best with guns, with knives, with his bare hands a man who's been trained to ignore, ignore weather. To live off the land job, was disposed of enemy personnel to kill period yeah, yeah, it's the best man.
Speaker 1:It's um, I gotta say uh, in my journey trying to figure out, you know, the, the hardest thing for us to do in this transition phase of our lives is finding purpose, passion, mission, and I already knew that I had a passion and a drive towards helping others, so I was like, okay, I leaned into that.
Speaker 1:And being able to see somebody that's in the same path achieve the success and walk across that stage and get that doctorate, that's one of the most important things any of us could ever ask for seeing somebody on the same path and having that path Because, you know, what matters most to us is Green Berets. It puts on the ground perspective. If they were taking the fight to the enemy and succeeding, then I know I can do it. I know that I can be successful and you're doing that for so many of us. So, jonathan, thank you for being here today, because this episode we're going to dive into your entire life and how you chose your path for your next endeavor, because a lot of us don't think of education as being something we can pursue after our time in service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brother, tell us about your journey. When it came to hanging up that Green beret, how did you first start developing your next path?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I should start with, I technically haven't hung up my green beret yet. I am on my last month of terminal leave, so I'm in a position. But my journey into what I'm doing right now has been kind of a unique one, because I started it 10 years ago. Yeah, I just knew that, uh, I wanted to be working in higher education. I wanted to be working, uh, training future healthcare professionals, and a lot of that has to do with my military experience. So I mean, I I came into the army in 2003 as a as an army combat medic with bright eyes and a bushy tail and, you know, happened to run into a Green Beret and, uh, he was training up for um, a deployment to Iraq, and he used us as kind of his like, I guess, uh, his cheese, if you would time to at the time.
Speaker 2:And you know he noticed that I wasn't getting a lot of love because I was the medic, the one-off job in a group full of combat arms, moss, and so he came over and started putting me through a bunch of medical drills, you know, just little situational exercises, things like that. That's helped me really kind of expand my understanding of what being a medic was in combat. Because at this time I was kind of naive and I thought to myself, wow, this must be one of the most the fabled 18 Deltas that I heard about in AIT. You know I heard about in AIT. You know, come to find out he was actually the echo. The radio guy in SF was a better medic than I was as as an actual army medic and you know, I knew right then like, uh, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe SF is something that I need to go explore.
Speaker 1:You're supposed to cross train. As a green beret and my last team, I was able to witness that same. We shit on our Echoes a lot and I want to pause and highlight I'm not going to say this individual. He's incredibly humble and wouldn't want me to put his name out there, but one of our best, best medics was actually 18 Echo Because he learned from two of the best friggin' medics in our battalion in because he learned from two of the best frigging medics in our battalion in our company. And you know, we were blessed to have three very capable medics and we just cross-trained, cross-trained and cross-trained.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, so I owe it to a Green Beret, actually for really hammering home. The first time that I thought to myself, you know I can be better hammering home, the first time that I thought to myself, you know I can be better, uh, and and here's an example of somebody who is better at what I'm doing right now and maybe I should strive for that so fast forward and, um, you know, I go on uh to 15 month deployments route clearance, medic company, combat engineers just getting blown up left and right. It stayed.
Speaker 2:The course was awesome, let me tell you especially for uh for uh reference packages what time was this, uh, 2000 2007 05 06 and then some overlap from 07 into uh 09 yeah, yeah, those are, uh, those are hard times, yeah there were. There were hard times, big bombs and loud booms.
Speaker 2:But I started noticing that a lot of my buddies were getting their bells rung quite a bit and you start seeing some changes in them over time and instead of dealing with the you know, catastrophic multi-system trauma patients that they had trained me for and set my expectations to see, you know, we saw those from time to time.
Speaker 2:We were seeing a lot of TBI, a lot of traumatic brain injury, and it frustrated me that I had no formal training in any of this whatsoever. Not only that, the system wasn't even robust enough to even understand and take care of the magnitude of what ultimately became the signature wounding of the global war on terror. Right so it was around year 10, right after I got out of the qualification course put my green beret on for the first time that the stars aligned and because I had that 18 Delta training, I could pursue a bachelor's degree consistent with the amount of credits that they would award me because I was an 18 Delta and because of my previous military training.
Speaker 2:So that was the first enabling thing really, and then from then on it was just a bug. I got really curious, wanted to be better and better and better, and just found that my education pathway became a means to be able to be a better medic and a better teammate for those around me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it can be daunting at first to take on college coursework while you're in group, but I got my associates and I worked through it while I was in Afghanistan. A lot of people put college education in the realm of the impossible while you're still in and I was fortunate enough to have other friends that were conventional and had jobs that were far more demanding. One of my earliest mentors and great friends I hate that. I have to say that publicly John Waterhouse was a phenomenal NCO. He was getting his degrees while he was cadre at West Point, while he was raising a family, while he was doing all these things. And we talk a lot about what it takes to be the Green Beret but we forget how much more, how many other jobs and how demanding those professions can be in the military. And if others can do it, you can do it too. What were some of the things that you struggled with while getting your education and still working as Green Beret?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the most obvious one is communications. So most of my college work was accomplished via the internet and distance learning, and that requires a stable connection. So you can imagine that I am cross-trained very well as an 18 Echo, because I would find ways to ensure a stable connection in order to be able to complete my undergraduate and graduate studies. I remember this one particular time we were in the Philippines and there was no stable connection in the area that we were. So I ended up taking a proprietary app and bonding five different cell phones into a single connection to be able to sustain the bandwidth necessary to make my synchronous class on Wednesday, wednesday at 2 am, because you know you're on the other side of the world and everybody else is convening and you know what the beautiful part about that is that I always joke that my education has made me a better medic, but it's probably made me an even better Green Beret communicator because of the ability to be able to problem solve.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you how many things that, how many different systems I've used, non-tactical and tactical, to be able to just establish that internet connection. Yeah, and then not only that now I have that skill so that, when it comes down to it. You know, if you fast forward, 18 zulu uh john lou, team daddy teaching, teaching one of his 18 echoes a thing or two. Two about how to utilize commercial office health systems to maintain communications with hire.
Speaker 1:It's so broad. You're being a little bit secretish with this. Was this an app that you just found through a friend or helped develop? How did you figure this out?
Speaker 2:My teammate, google, was a critical component of my education, not just for you know my literature views, but also because Google was the answer to a lot of the issues that I would run into. How do I get stable internet using only cell phone service in country X? If you will, and I would, google and I would research and I would find out that the local telecom company would limit the amount of bandwidth on each phone. So the only way to get around that would be to use multiple phones. Now how do I get these multiple phones to be able to sync into a single bandwidth? And there was a software solution for that.
Speaker 2:It was called Speedify at the time. I'm not sure how it is, but it's a bonding VPN that allowed you to connect multiple different systems channels, if you would, to be able to create a single high bandwidth channel. And that's what I ended up doing, and you know what those skills are generalizable right back to what I was doing at the time, which was operating as a green beret uh in in unknown environments, and it contributed to this culture of this inner personal culture of everybody. Everything in the world is telling me no, and yet I am finding a way to get to yes.
Speaker 1:And that's.
Speaker 2:That's the green beret beret way right there absolutely.
Speaker 1:man like there's um we, when we transition, we, we tend to forget how many times we made the impossible possible, and I, I send that message out all the time. If you get out and you get into a profession that's quaint, slow moving and easy, you're going to hate it. You need to be challenged. It's a green beret. You need to be challenged, and the same goes, I believe, for a lot of service members. Go after the impossible. Go after, even if you meet a roadblock. The obstacle is the way. Keep going If you really want that, if you really want to be happy. Challenge yourself.
Speaker 1:The fact that you're sitting here and you're sharing this experience of going through school, your graduate level, college education, while deployed. To a lot of people, it sounds like no possible way, but to a lot of Green Berets that are finally opening their eyes, they're going to say, yeah, this is possible, this is doable, I can do this. I think all of us need to take that challenge to look at what we want to do in life and really judge it and be a harsh critic of that dream. Is this big enough for me? Is this truly big enough? Am I being of service to others? I get it Comfort's fun, but you're going to have a lot more enjoyment developing something like how to map a cell network out of a whole bunch of cell phones and Roshans to get signals so you can do your college homework. That's just insane.
Speaker 2:You know it's incredible they don't tell you on the brochure for when they're recruiting you to be a Green Beretet how many? Of these odds and end skills that you're going to learn, that are going to be generalizable and help you and help enable success on the way out, and that's that's, by far and large, been my, my experience here, now that I am day eight into my big boy job, my real boy job yeah, no-transcript.
Speaker 1:You were able to go through your entire graduate program while you were still in. How were you able to manage just the day-to-day operations at work, and were you still running a team as a team sergeant, or did you find yourself being like, okay, like I gotta, I gotta position myself in another position so I can take this course load and be, you know, a functioning member of the organization?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really appreciate that question because that's the question that a lot of my junior NCOs, when I was serving as a senior enlisted medical advisor for a group, would come to me with. I just how did you find that time to be able to do work and school? And my answer to that was make school work and make work school. And that was really one of the interesting ways that I was able to find the time, because there's no way I would have been able to maintain full-time status as a student and also do full-time work. But what I did was I found where the overlap was and I made school work for me. And when work overlapped with school, I would incorporate the commander's objectives and the commander's intent into a project that I would be doing for school.
Speaker 2:Understandably so that's a little bit more difficult in the undergraduate realm, where a coursework's a little bit more directed. In the undergraduate realm where a course where it's a little bit more, uh, directed as opposed to self-directed. But an example for how this worked really well for me in my undergraduate if, if you don't mind, I'll give you an example for undergraduate, masters and doctorate absolutely undergraduates. Here I was green beret team daddy says hey, you're going to the level three course. We all know what the level three course is Very, very demanding. Turns out that doing homework at a coffee shop actually helped me out with decompressing and being able to get my mind set and maintain my wits about me during the level three course, and that worked out very, very well for me, to my advantage. Almost so everybody that was saying you're not going to have time, you're not going to have time. I was a full-time student. I maintained a full-time student status through that course.
Speaker 1:Exactly it worked out. You're just a guy as a coffee shop doing his homework.
Speaker 2:Doing my homework drinking coffee. What are you doing, weirdo? Get away from me. My favorite one was look, dude, I'm taking a timed quiz right now. Just leave me alone. I'm taking a real-time quiz. Look, look, and I legitimately would. Yeah, and it worked. My master's work my master's thesis, was on special forces by psychosocial factors, but be immersed in became a very, very effective way to manage my time and create time and compound my efforts towards both work and education. Education my doctoral dissertation was on a local holistic wellness program that was nested within our HPW and Thor 3 programs, and being able to do that and aligning that with my duties as the group's senior medic made it a no-brainer for me to say hey, this is work, this is in line with commander's intent, this is what the group surgeon says his priorities are. It's nested within that too. Your people and their wellness are number one.
Speaker 2:You can't argue with me if I'm going to spend time towards this and at the end of the day, I like to think that my education, my educational pursuits, helps build a better organization and helps leave my unit better than how I found it. Absolutely, it's just finding that opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, finding that opportunity, yeah, that's the one thing that blows me away when I finally open my eyes and realize that the solutions to the problems we're facing as a community, as an organization, are going to come from us. We know the cohort, we know the individuals, we know what works. It's individuals such as yourself that are out there championing the cause and championing the solutions for problems that we've already been seeing, and that's what we need more of our brothers and sisters to do. Look for your passion in your next endeavor and make sure that it's nested in being of service to other people, at least being able to give back with your intelligence, with your work, and being able to say like hey, here's proof, here's proof, here's here's right here. Look at this, read this. This is some answers to what we're all dealing with. That's just phenomenal. And being able to tie that back while you're still in and being able to see the benefit within your guys, that's amazing. That's something that so many of us forget.
Speaker 2:Like you can improve your foxhole each and every day of us forget like you can improve your foxhole each and every day, each and every day. And you know, I think, a lot of people that would detract from getting an education in the army. Some of them would submit to us that, oh, education isn't the answer, it's not the end, all be all. No, no, of course it's not. People are the answer. People are the answer to the world's most wicked problems. Education is a tool. Yes, and it's up to you to be able to understand the limitations and the advantages of that tool and to apply it effectively. And, as it turns out, we have a way within our society to be able to teach you how to apply an education towards a specific or generalized task. Yeah, and that route is academia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's more prevalent for individuals such as ourselves that have traveled the world and seen individuals and seen cultures where you may not have anything, you may not have fancy shoes, you may not have all the great luxuries that we have here in the West. So when you see kids that are willing to walk 10 miles to get to school, that hits different. When you meet partner force individuals that are like man I didn't have an education until I served that hits home. That's one of the biggest things and certainly for me, being generation American, like I knew intimately what an education will provide me and for the kids that I someday have, like having that ability to say like holy shit, like here's, here's something. I worked so hard my entire life in service to our nation. I have these benefits. To not use them is like a slap in the face. Dude people have died trying to get a basic education. Go do it. You have the benefits.
Speaker 2:It's terrible to say, but literally there are children getting mauled by hippos on the way to school. Yes, and here's this opportunity for you. Because, and here's this opportunity for you. And it kills me that there are so many barriers, be it personal or institutional or organizational, that prevent somebody from just saying you know what, let me take a chance on this, let me try it. It's not going to cost me anything, maybe a little bit of time, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and that's. That's the thing that we we ultimately have to understand time time is that big factor that, arguably, is the most important one. Do you want to waste your time partying? Do you want to waste your time playing video games and then getting out of the military and then saying like I'm gonna have to show for it some cool photos like you can do this work right now, like it. Just time management as an nco. It's like your biggest thing.
Speaker 2:Daddies, some dudes from first group are gonna sit here and watch this podcast one day and like have worked with me before and they're gonna get. They're gonna chuckle because you just said you know it's gonna be up to part partying or whether or not you want to pursue an education, and somebody's going to chuckle and be like John Lou's the biggest partier that I know. God, my wife's going to see this one day and I'm going to be in so much trouble. But it's the truth. It's the truth. You can have your cake and eat it too. That's the appeal of SF. I'm'm gonna trademark that too, so that if uh special forces recruiting ever wants to uh utilize that one, that, that, that that moniker or recruiting tagline, they're gonna have to pay me for that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah yeah, we'll keep that special forces, have your cake and eat it too, to a, to a certain extent To a degree Restrictions apply.
Speaker 1:Yes, there is curfew and you have to really mind your manners. Yes, please, can we just not get in trouble anymore for a little bit? Right, when it came down to the juggling family time, what were some of the constraints? What were some of the things that you found? Did you ever find yourself having to take a little bit of time off from school, and how did that factor in with having a family?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely. Yes, I had to take time off of school. Yes, I had to stop and take a knee at some point in time. Yes, I had to request that military leave of absence, which there's no respectable institution out there that wouldn't grant you an unlimited military leave of absence to be able to facilitate that. And wellness is a qualifying military leave of absence reason to request for it. So take care of yourselves. Out there too, it's okay to take any uh. On the family side it I was fortunate in that, you know, my wife is uh, she's, she's, she's a harder ass than I am and uh, she, she ended up, uh, starting her doctoral program at the same time. I did uh as well.
Speaker 2:No way, yeah, she, she actually, uh, worked full-time, raised kids, held the family fort down as an orthopedic nurse practitioner, started her DNP program and then proceeded to have two more children during that program. The whole purpose of me being on here right now is, if I can do it, so can you my mantra on the family side was well, my wife can do it, so can I.
Speaker 2:What's my excuse? For me, it's literally go out with the boys or hunker down and do your assignment and the required reading For her. For her, it was well, I gotta feed the kids, I gotta put them down. You know they're gonna wake up in the middle of night. Now I gotta, now I gotta, you know, do xyz to keep this house afloat yeah so it wasn't a choice for her.
Speaker 1:She had to do both my god, I can only imagine the amount of coffee and the amount of just, uh, constant support that you guys had to provide for each other. I know you're you're a humble green beret, but I'm pretty sure like it's a family goes this when a family's going through education at the same time, it's all hands on deck across the board and we we don't always show what it's like or talk about the support that we receive at home. I know I couldn't be going to school running a business without my wife. Arguably our, our, our biggest cheerleader is our spouse, the person that's saying like, because there's, I know there's times, I know, when you're trying to accomplish the impossible, there must've been times you're like maybe we all change majors.
Speaker 2:A lot. I thought about actually leaving my doctoral program at one point. Really, you know, it became a lot. Gotten back from Afghanistan, thought to myself that I could continue to keep the recipe going with aligning my academic pursuits with educational pursuits, and I'd be amiss to not touch on this. Sometimes they just won't align, sometimes they just won't align. And so I was a year successful into my team sergeant time. I had another year, and that was a year into my program, my doctoral program, and then I was told that I was going to have a third year in position as a team sergeant and that was kind of the impetus for me taking a moment and really reflecting on am I going to be able to do this at the same time? And ultimately what I ended up doing was taking an extended military leave of absence and taking a pause. Now's not the right time.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Being the team sergeant and getting that third year that's if you're not, if you're not, if you're not part of the regiment special forces is unique because, even though there's a captain, even though there's a warrant, and those individuals are vital, like the team lives and breathes because of the team sergeant. That is the individual that will ultimately take all those guys and bring them home and get everything ready for them to train and demobilize and then come right back and do everything all over again. It is there's no, there's a, there's a reason why those guys go in there bright eye, bushy, tailed, and then, within two to three years, it's all gray. It's just all gray hair.
Speaker 2:This is all a filter right now.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you right now I've got a great friend. He had a great beautiful head of hair. Now he's got like the 1980s detective balding and it's all gray and it's a stressful job. It demands so much and it's completely understandable taking a knee from school. So hats off to you, man. That's insane.
Speaker 2:And you know that actually came as a conversation between myself, and then some external stimulus too as well my sergeant major at the time. Actually, I confided in him with it and ultimately he wasn't going to direct me to do what needed to be done, and he wanted to coach and guide me into making what was the right decision for me. And it turns out that the right decision for me is generally, 99.9% of the time, the right decision that my moral compass tells me to make and that was put this down. It'll be here. You can pick it back up in its entirety when you're ready to pick it up again, but this team needs you right now.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. It's important to highlight that while you're getting your education and you're still on a team, you're still working in the military. You have control of the situation. It's not like you enroll and it's like I just have to continue going. You can pause. You can take that knee. Understand that your goal is ultimately to graduate. It doesn't have to be this frigging sprint. It's a marathon. When things get crazy, when a deployment comes up, pause reevaluate, talk and reach out to your academic advisors. Be willing to communicate with the people that are supporting you on your journey. When you made that decision, did you feel hesitant or were you at peace with them Like, hey, I'm going to come back within a year. By the time this team starting position is done, I'll move up to the next job and I'll be able to take my education back under my control.
Speaker 2:You know, it's really hard for any Green Beret or anybody with this kind of personality to acknowledge one's own limitations.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a very, very difficult pill to swallow, especially when they're confronted with it for the first time and perhaps it confronted with it for the first time and perhaps it wasn't confronted for the first time, but certainly you realize that you have to address this for the first time. And that was the first time where I had to acknowledge that, hey, this is a conflict. My ability to be present is finite, it's absolutely finite. And right now I'm in the red, I'm completely in the red on this account and something's going to give. Something's going to give, whether it's me, whether it's a relationship that I had, whether it's my team, whether it's the mission, or whether it's my academic career. I can't do all of this right now. So, really, just acknowledging and giving myself grace and compassion and saying I can't do all this right now, but that's okay. Can't do all this right now, but that's okay.
Speaker 2:And and accepting that has been one of the uh, more important skills that I've had to purposefully develop. And I say purposely develop because that is not something that just uh, I, I just picked the skill up. No, you gotta work on it. I'm telling you, as a gb, you gotta work on that every single day. That should be GB 101. We should start teaching dudes in the Q course Acknowledge what your limitations are. You're going to expand, you're going to grow, your capacity is going to grow, but you are always going to have limitations, and when you exceed those limitations, you will fail. That's the whole purpose of training, right? Well, guess what? The human body and the psychosocial aspects of wellness are exactly the same way. If you exceed those limitations, something's going to fail.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, when we're talking about our health and the relationships around us and the things and responsibilities that we have to balance in life, almost all of those are no-fail situations too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the beautiful thing is that those interests, those things, those aspects of life not all of them have to be paid attention at all times. And that's the beauty of recognizing your limitations and giving yourself grace when you can't be present for one thing in particular because you have to be present for another competing interest, be that the team. In this particular scenario that we're talking about, there are dudes that are listening right now whose wives will hear this and be like yes, pay attention to me. Yeah, go pay attention to your spouses. Yes, pay attention to me. Yeah, go pay attention to your spouses.
Speaker 1:They're probably a little deficient in the overall account.
Speaker 2:And it's okay. It's okay, but finding that balance starts with giving yourself the grace to acknowledge that you can't be 100% present for everything, for every responsibility that you have 100% of the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is so true. And the other thing I want to hit on is self-compassion. We don't teach that. It's not something that we're born with, understanding completely, and it is a vital aspect of being able to bounce back and be resilient, vital aspect of being able to bounce back and be resilient, like we are the worst critic of our performance. And the easiest way to start living better is understanding self-compassion. You know what? I didn't. I didn't, I didn't crush this test, but I'll do better next time. I'll be fine.
Speaker 1:That was the hardest thing for me to understand that, you know, after going to so many SF schools. You're like I'm I never fail a test. I never do, I'm going to get a hundred percent on everything. You get that first test. That's not a hundred percent. And that hits you at that green break. Or like, oh my God, I didn't, I'm not a hundred percent on everything. No, next time. Like it's okay, yeah, you'll do better next time.
Speaker 1:And so many of us need to understand that and hear that and really internalize it. Be kind to yourself, be willing to say, hey, wait a second, I can't take it, and I get it. I still struggle with it every single day. I want to do everything for everyone, but the reality is you only have so much time and you only have so much focus and attention on a daily basis. It's okay to say no that was one of the hardest concepts on daily basis. It's okay to say no. That was one of the hardest concepts to learn. It's okay to say no because we're trained to always hell yeah, yes, I'm gonna do yes turn right, so salute the flag.
Speaker 2:Execute right with violence absolutely man.
Speaker 1:uh, what were some of the things that you leaned on in that period in time to kind of like, bring yourself back to like okay, I need to let go of this. I need to refocus and get my strength back, get Lou back to being 100%? I know I found mindfulness and meditation and have now cultivated that spirit realm in my faith. What are some of the things that you leaned on?
Speaker 2:So certainly so. My doctoral work was in behavioral health and really that's in pursuit of a career in wellness. I lean very, very heavily on finding purpose in everything that I do, because idle hands are a bad place for me, and I'm venturing to say that there's a lot of us out there listening right now.
Speaker 2:Like you know, that's when I get in trouble. So I lean very heavily on this idea of exploring who I was and really finding what my identity truly was. I was and really finding what my identity truly was. And it was timely because I knew when Team Sergeant time is up, because everybody says you'll never have it as good as this ever again. Well, hell, dude, like what's the point of becoming a Sergeant Major in SF ever if you're telling me right now that this is the best that it'll ever be? And it was, it was.
Speaker 2:So when I came to that realization that, wow, I peaked in the regiment, I had to really go back and reevaluate who I was, my identity and what my deeply held values were and natural curiosity, again in line with my academic pursuits and my chosen path and profession. I started exploring that and what I ended up coming to was that I needed to get past this skin deep identity of what somebody or what my external factors have imparted upon me. And, bros, I'm here to tell you being a GB is not a part of who you are when you came butt ass naked into this world. It's not a part of who you were when you were a child growing up and you created formative, deeply held convictions. It's not yeah, there are a lot of overlap to do the culture and values and identity of being a green beret some of the to your deeply held values, but at the end of the day, we set ourselves up for success when we tie who we are with what we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we have to have that discussion and acknowledgement. Being a Green Beret is going to come to an end. Yeah, it's going to come to an end one day. And if I tie my identity and who I am to this and it comes to an end, knowing that it's coming to an end, what else is there after that? You go into an identity crisis, which?
Speaker 1:is like the number one thing that so many of our guys are dealing with. I talk about it all the time. I was fortunate I made it into a treatment center and that's when I was confronted with the understanding that I had to address the identity. I didn't know who I was and arguably a lot of our guys are dealing with that same thing. They're just. They may not be as fortunate as I was to go to a treatment center to sit down and have that alone time to process, like who are you really?
Speaker 1:So we strive so hard to get into this organization, or you know, you try to be. You enter and become a SEAL, become a MARSOC Raider, become a CCT, a TACP, and you tie your identity to that thing, that beret, that scroll or that tab, and that's everything that's good about you. But then you leave and then you're sitting there and now you're surrounded by alcohol and maybe prescription drugs and maybe other recreational drugs and that's what you lean into, that help, that heal that wound. And the reality is you just need time, time and space and really dig deep and only you can do that work. And I know I'm grateful for having done that and exploring that. When you went through. Did you have that crisis of identity? Or were you able to because of your education, because of what you were studying, were you able to kind of like put a finger on that pulse and actually, okay, understand it and like not avoid that crisis point, so to speak?
Speaker 2:I actually had that crisis points and then deliberately made the decision to focus on making my studies a focus of why I went into that crisis point in my studies a focus of why I went into that crisis point.
Speaker 2:So a lot of it's experiential learning, uh, when you, when you're trying to, when you're trying to uh get degrees while while active duty, yeah, that's, that's, that's ultimately what drove my curiosity, which I mean, that's that's a side point right there, but an important one to make same here. Do something that catches your interest, you know, like study, study that, whatever's interesting to you, study that. And uh, I found myself in a position like, wow, who the hell am I and what am I gonna be when I grow up? Yeah, uh, because the times, the clocks are ticking and I'm not sure what I want to do yet.
Speaker 2:And fortunately I was surrounded by mental health professionals, by virtue of what I was studying, and some really great connections and peers within the health and wellness and coaching domain piqued my curiosity and they helped me kind of poke my curiosity into why and into kind of a self-exploration for why I went into that. And then curiosity took the rest of it. I think that was just the most effective way for me to deal with that and come to realization and then ultimately create the circumstances for me to pull myself out of it and reaffirm myself and make myself, uh, you know, a better version of who I was then then um at that period in time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's important that we highlight this. And, guys, if you're listening, pause on that and just kind of like, let that marinate in. Like when you're going through something and I was guilty of it too I didn't want to look up, I didn't want to research, I didn't want to even just go to Google and start putting in the search query for what I was dealing with. But when you start going through this process of feeling like you're losing your identity, you're leaving behind the greatest thing on earth. Lean into that, search into that, be willing to read new concepts, be willing to dive into Brene Brown's books and pick up operator syndrome to understand what you're dealing with physically as well as what you're dealing with mentally, and then let your curiosity take you towards a path of healing and then asking for help and advocating for help.
Speaker 1:Because, let me tell you, if you've done this job for 10, 15, 20 plus years, there are some things that you have to address, whether it's mental health, wise or physically. Be willing to be vulnerable and ask the right questions. Your time is going to end. You might as well start arming yourself with knowledge, because that's truly like one of the most freeing things when you understand that doctors don't just know the answer to everything. You have to go there with questions and have some sort of self-advocacy in order to get the answers you're seeking. Otherwise, you're going to end up in the VA system just taking whatever pills they throw at you. That's not a fun experience, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's not fun experience. Yeah, my professional curiosity is all about empowering others to take charge of their own health and well-being, and we're moving away from this healthcare model of directed healthcare where you're just told what to do. You are the biggest stakeholder in your own health and well-being and if you're not realizing that and you're not empowered with the knowledge, skills, abilities to be able to take and assume that role as the lead stakeholder, then I encourage you to seek those resources and seek opportunities to be able to build those skills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to. I want to ask you about the Pat Tillman Scholarship. How did that process go for you?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, quite frankly, 2020, I was in Afghanistan and at the time I had a mentor who was a clinical psychologist and he had suggested to me why don't you pursue clinical psychology? And I go yeah, that's cool. The only problem is that I'll have to leave the military service in a 12-year military career. It's not as easy for me to go and just drop everything and start a professional graduate school towards clinical licensure. And so he goes.
Speaker 2:Well, you really need to explore this space and I found Arizona State University's behavioral health programs doctoral level program that was less on the psychology or the science of behavioral disorders and psychological disorders and the models concerning to it and more on kind of the overlap between primary care and psychology applied in applied behavior. If you would not apply behavior analysis that's. That's actually a very distinct discipline within sub-discipline, within psychology, but that piqued my curiosity. Again, you'll you'll hear this term with me. Curiosity is a hell of a and it's a hell of a thing for a lot of other dudes, like what is there out there? If it piques your curiosity, it's probably worth paying attention to, to see if you'll get a little bit more curiosity piqued With that.
Speaker 2:I ended up applying. I wanted to take a clinical route, but of course it was pretty nebulous to try to explain to them why I had this clinical background without any master's level clinic or licensure, which was a prerequisite for admission. They eventually were like, yeah, well, I mean, we'll let you in conditionally. So I was like, okay, cool, now I got to pay for it Because, fun fact, the Army tuition assistance will not pay for enlisted service members to pursue anything past a master's degree. That's worth mentioning right there. So I got to pay for this. Now it's expensive.
Speaker 2:Military affiliated or veterans from Arizona State University. I ran across the Pat Tillman Foundation, who actually is not affiliated formally with Arizona State other than it was the late Pat Tillman's alma mater. I applied and the old saying from selection is do not self-select. And you know what? I didn't self-select and put my best foot forward and had, I guess, the audacity to say this is who I am. No bullshit, this is who I am and I'm proud of it.
Speaker 2:And if I could give a little piece of advice to, one thing that I'm recognizing is making me successful in transition is recognize where you come from and give yourself the grace again to acknowledge that, yes, you are awesome and special for having gone through and earned a green beret. You're a little bit cut above the rest. I mean, maybe not say it like that, tone it down a little bit. Yeah, tone it down a little bit of cut above the rest, don't? I mean? Maybe not say it like that, tone it down a little bit, yeah, tone it down a little bit, but acknowledge that.
Speaker 2:Give yourself enough credit to be able to say this is how I know. Be confident in the knowledge, skills, abilities and experiences that the regiments and the life of a Green Beret has bestowed upon you, because oftentimes we go on to this quite professional trip where we, for all the right reasons, we're a little too humble and your job interview is not the time to demonstrate complete humility. It's not or corporate meeting. That is not the time to demonstrate humility. They want bold, audacious, and God help me if I don't know a single freaking, bold or audacious Green Beret.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we preach that we're the quiet professionals, but yeah, I've never met uh, an 18 bravo or 18 charlie, that didn't uh go big when they had their chance with either explosives or machine guns. That's what you need to be man. And I wanted to highlight the pat toman uh scholarship, especially because money is a factor right, mm-hmm. And while you're in use, every resource available. When you're out, go big, dream big. You can get your education paid for through VR&E and then, furthermore, you can apply to all sorts of scholarships to help supplement that. If you want to go to medical school, you're going to have to take the MCAT. Well, if you're like me and you know you've just started your you know education, later in life you might need to get one of those MCAT prep courses. Guess what? A scholarship wouldn't pay for that. It would pay for a process to get you into that medical school. So, dream big, go after the impossible.
Speaker 1:Don't stay in your transition in ambiguity. Don't just lay there and think that you'll figure it out eventually. Start dreaming now, while you're still in. Start pulling that thread of what you're excited about. That's the reality. Don't go into something that you kind of like. Be excited about what you're doing.
Speaker 1:I meet a lot of people right now that are about to transition, and the first conversations we have is always about well, I kind of like doing this and I think I could do this. Don't just think about what you were just kind of like going to be okay doing. Go big, dream about what you really want to do, what you'll be excited to do, because I'm telling you right now there are transition organizations that can help you achieve that goal. Whether it's education or going into that awesome job working at that amazing company, nothing's impossible these days. If there's a will, there's a way. If you think there's an obstacle blocking you, there's a million people out there that are willing to step in and help you figure out how to get over it around it or just fucking blow it in place. So do yourself a favor and start dreaming today. Be like Lou, start thinking about what you want to do before you get out and, jonathan, before I let you go. What are you doing now, as you're actually in your terminal leave? What is your new profession?
Speaker 2:As you're actually in your terminal leave. What is your new profession? Yeah, so I did successfully make that transition into higher education and healthcare. Again, I am having my cake and eating it still, because those were two things that I thought were mutually exclusive they are not and I found my dream job dream job. So I work in the student success division at the director level for specifically healthcare-aligned students.
Speaker 2:So my pre-health, my pre-medicine anybody that's looking to pursue an undergraduate degree and hoping to gain admission to a graduate professional school or medical school we're here to empower your journey along the way, really implementing a lot of my lessons within the Army, using a lot of nontraditional approaches to ensure that we're creating interprofessionally-minded healthcare providers that are ready to heal and be the be, the fill, the need that our community so desperately need. Um, very, very grateful for it. Uh, I thought I was going to go and retire into the sunsets and take a sabbatical and then, uh, as it turns out, the little, little dream job uh, popped up on onto the radar at the local university in my hometown that my mother graduated from. No way.
Speaker 1:That is awesome.
Speaker 2:And it's more to follow. I'm really excited with what we're doing over here.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, you're an amazing person to have in the network. If you guys have any questions, I'm going to put you through straight through the loo, because I have a feeling that more and more of our soft professionals and conventional brothers and sisters are looking to get involved in healthcare, especially in well-being and mental health, because, like I said earlier, the solutions to our problems are up to us to find, and some people don't like talking to individuals that don't have that lived experience, and we're seeing more people lean into peer-to-peer support, lean into these avenues of well-being that are built by communities of individuals that represent us. So I cannot wait to see what the future holds for you, brother, and I think that you're going to get a lot of people reaching out to you. Do you mind if we put your LinkedIn?
Speaker 2:out there for people to reach out if they have questions? Absolutely not, please do. Please reach out to me, whether it's questions about higher education, healthcare professions or even the Pat Tillman Foundation, because they were a huge piece as to why I was able to pursue what I was pursuing. And you know what I think, if I could just insert kind of a little experience with Pat Tillman Foundation, the best part of it was that PTF. They helped me realize that I'm not alone in trying to find a better version of myself and trying to make this world a little bit better. In my own little sector of fire, I have a lot of respect for my fellow scholars and for the staff that are just doing amazing things over there and I encourage anybody that's maybe not sure how they're going to fund a program and is a military veteran or military affiliated it's also open to military spouses to take a look at the Pat Tillman Foundation and the Tillman Scholarship.
Speaker 1:Awesome, lou. Thank you so much for being here today, brother. Again, if you guys have any questions or just want to get some info on how to go about getting your graduate level education, hit lou up. Hit him up on linkedin and if you go to the episode description there'll be a link right there to click and then you it's up to you to make that that contact to all of you listening. Thank you for tuning in today and we'll see you all next time. Until then, if you like what we're doing and you enjoying the show, don't forget to share us. Like us, subscribe and head on over to our patreon where you can be part of our community and get access to all of our episodes as soon as they drop. And remember we get through this together, take care.
