Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
Join us as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, proving that even after the mission changes, the call to serve and thrive never ends.
Security Halt!
The Veteran’s Guide to Finding Identity After Military Service
In this compelling episode of the Security Halt! Podcast, Deny Caballero sits down with Varpas De Sa Pereira to tackle one of the toughest challenges veterans face: the transition to civilian life. From navigating the identity crisis to finding renewed purpose and managing mental health, this conversation dives deep into the unique struggles of leaving the military behind.
Varpas shares his personal journey, discussing the emotional toll of warrior withdrawal syndrome, the cultural disconnect veterans often feel, and the importance of community support in rebuilding a sense of belonging. The episode sheds light on critical topics like PTSD, imposter syndrome, and the psychological impact of military service, offering actionable insights and hope for veterans navigating their new reality.
Whether you're a veteran, a supporter, or simply curious about the complexities of military transition, this episode is packed with valuable lessons on resilience, connection, and growth. Don't miss it—stream now on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts!
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Journey
06:10 Transitioning from Military to Civilian Life
12:46 Working with Youth and Mental Health
17:49 The Impact of Combat Experience on Therapy
23:12 Understanding Warrior Withdrawal Syndrome
29:19 The Importance of Community and Support
35:55 The Struggle of Transitioning from Active Duty
44:33 Imposter Syndrome and the Need for Validation
50:58 Connecting Through Shared Experiences and Symbols
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Be sure to get his new book today! Warrior Withdrawal: When BAMF No Longer Means Bad*$$ M^ther#u@!er
https://www.amazon.com/Warrior-Withdrawal-When-Longer-Means/dp/196220250X?tag
Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Odd Podcast. Let's go. The only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent, it's hosted by me, denny Caballero Barfess. Welcome to Secure that Podcast man Thank you for having me. Absolutely. That's able to transcend and own their pivot journey and then turn their journey into something of purpose to serve others. I gotta have them on, because we tend to think that what we're going through is is only it only happens to us. Nobody else goes through these challenges. Then you open up the aperture when you get through your journey and you realize oh shit, everybody goes through this. I'm not the only one. That common humanity comes in and your book is an amazing title. But before we dive into that man, how did you find yourself in the service?
Speaker 2:dude. The short version of the story is my dad was in the army. Briefly so he's from yeah, he was born and raised in Brazil, went to medical school in Brazil, came to the United States to find his future and one of the quicker pathways to citizenship was if you joined the military. So he did. Interesting fact is that he was not an American citizen and he had a secret clearance because he was working at US Amrit. So that's kind of how things ran post-Vietnam era in the 70s. So between that and my grandfather as I kind of mentioned in the book, who served in the Lithuanian army, went to their version of West Point, I sort of always had that martial attitude and figured I'd follow in my father's footsteps and be a navy physician. He's army, but I figured I like the navy better.
Speaker 2:Um, got into college, took the rotc scholarship and said I don't actually want to be a doctor, at least not right now. I said what uh? What's what do you? Got on the other side of the house and they're like well, you have a Navy uh scholarship, we can transfer it to the Marines, you can be Marine infantry. But I mean, at first they said like you can be a seal and I was like, cool, sign me up.
Speaker 2:And they're like, oh, but your, your vision is so poor, you can't see the large E on you. No seal for you, no, nothing like that, and say we're gonna make you a new power driver because you're a smart guy. They said, no thanks, send me over to the marines. So that's how I ended up in the marines and, uh, chose infantry. I did as well as I could at the basic school to get an infantry, with the idea of always getting a special operations through recon force recon. However, it took to get there and then, you know, a long and winding road did end up over at usasoc. So, you know, somewhat successful there.
Speaker 1:So that's how I got just a little bit yeah yeah, it's funny where our military path takes us in the journey we take, and your book highlights something that I think of course definitely impacts every veteran, but importantly our warfighters, our warriors, our soft professionals this concept of who am I now? Where do I belong, how do I recalibrate and readjust to really truly find a purposeful life? And how did you begin this book, how did you begin diving into that and peel that layer for us?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know, the Marine Corps is every Marine is a rifleman and nobody's special. So as soon as I stepped out into an army unit, um, they kind of I got the sense that they didn't really want me back. Some people said that explicitly, like you're too unconventional now. And other people sort of did it behind, behind my back, like, uh, shifting things around for me to make it harder for me to stay in. So I got out right. And then in the process of getting out, I think some of the seeds started to get planted.
Speaker 2:Already At that tip of the spear, my, you know, my sergeant major went down to Soxcent and got me to. He's like this guy should be the next task force commander in Afghanistan for this particular unit. He lines it up for me to go. And then the Marine Corps is like no, you need to go to resident command and staff college. And I was like, no, I don't need to go to resident command and staff college, I'll do the distance learning or whatever it is. And they're like, no, that doesn't cut it, I'll do the distance learning or whatever it is. And they're like, no, that doesn't cut it. And so I said, all right, I'll do the blended program, which allegedly counts as much as the resident program, but it didn't matter that that cut that deployment. And so instead of me, they sent some Air Force lieutenant colonel to fill the spot.
Speaker 2:And that was a little bit of the start of like man, I am just a last forward in mos. I mean, it's impossible for um, even at the tip of the spear, for people to recognize that I'll still be treated this way, and it was just inside of me like I had to go. I needed the one, I needed to be the guy who would go, whether that's lack of humility or whatever it is, you know, at that point, like 15 years worth of combat tours Um, I've, you know, did I think I could do it better than somebody else. I don't know, maybe it's really better than some Air Force guy, at least in my mind at the time. But it had to be me, and so I talked about it in the introduction. I sat down with the Green Beret that was in my troop and he was also getting out, and he felt the same thing, like why do I have to go? Why does it have to be me? I didn't go on this task force trip to Afghanistan and they just filled it with somebody else and, as far as I know, the world didn't end. So just my, my tiny world was, was shattered there for a little bit. That, uh, plus the next set of orders they gave me, asking me to be a geographic bachelor for longer, I said, uh, no, thank you. Um, I'm out.
Speaker 2:Um, but then and this is what I teach veterans now is uh, when you are in your, your behaviors and your beliefs are aligned. So the line that I use typically from the Marine Corps is that the purpose of the Marine Corps rifle squad is to locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire maneuver or to repel the enemy's assault by fire and close combat. And so everything that you do in your plan of the day, plan of the week, your training plan, mission pre-deployment plans, all is aligned toward that, from the food they give you in the chow hall to the Marine Corps Institute distance learning program for writing so you can be a better communicator, to your physical training, marksmanship all of it is aligned to that. And then I retired, and then nobody's handing me the purpose. I got to figure it out, and not only that, it's very hard. So, okay, I'll be a dad. This is my purpose and that just doesn't seem to fill the bucket that, hey, you were briefing, sack your own target packages in his aos, like that. You know, pouring myself into that bucket didn't seem to be sufficient. So, you know, entered kind of what I guess I would call now is a little bit of a depression, like the loss of identity because of your, my training.
Speaker 2:I struggle with communications. Everything is active or passive communications. It's like hey, boot, go clean the head with your toothbrush. And then when you're the boot, you're like aye, aye, corporal. And then when you're the corporal, you tell the boot hey, boot, go clean the head with your toothbrush. And you expect them to say aye, aye, corporal. If the private first class says excuse me, corporal, the toothbrush has a very small surface area and this larger brush has a greater surface area and if I was to use this brush I might be able to clean many more of the toilets at a given time. Shut up, boot, wall-to-wall counseling, and then you move on. All of that is conditioning that then you're spit out into the civilian community.
Speaker 2:That doesn't like it. There is the analogy of the sheep, the wolves and the sheepdogs, and many veterans like to think that they're sheepdogs and I mentioned this in the books. Like you're not a sheepdog, if you join the Army, navy, air Force, marine Corps, you were turned into a warrior, indoctrinated into the warrior culture. You're a wolf. You're a wolf that's pointed at other countries and you fancy yourself as a sheepdog. But you're a wolf and the sheep culture doesn't want it.
Speaker 2:And sometimes so within the six months of EAS, ets, typically, that's when things go sideways drastically Because your spouse, family, whoever just expects you to revert back to what you were pre-wolf life, what you were pre-wolf life. And it can be awful when your spouse is like you're responsible. Your sadness or your anger is responsible for the whole family's demeanor now and you're dragging us all down. So if you're getting that in, you know the killer is in the phone calls coming from inside the house. So you can imagine then when, when you're added on the layers of like, well, my next job I'm drywalling and you know jones over here doesn't show up on time or does shit work or takes five smoke breaks. That's not your conditioning.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, that you got actually one of the most common things that I that I hear from friends is the frustrations in expecting civilians to act like riflemen from the squad and grenadiers and to always be on time and to be fit and to be neat, orderly, and it's just not the reality.
Speaker 2:No, and you can see it. So when I was married at the time and I had some of my sergeants came in to help set up a party and my ex-wife was surprised at how they just took whatever she said as a mission type order and executed it. She's like, hey, hang up these things. And you know, they went and found where the things were, they found ways to get them up, they found a ladder, all of these things. She's like that was my civilian co-workers. They would have just sat down and done nothing because I didn't tell them where to find the ladder or all this stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so all of that kind of uh puts you in a dark place. Uh put me in a dark place. And I started to try to figure it out and I realized what I was good at. I started to go back and contract for my old unit and I felt like myself again. So this is the definition of a withdrawal syndrome.
Speaker 2:So if you're substance abuse I don't try to define it for guys, I just call it being a warrior, whatever it was that pulled you in and kept you past basic training means that you are some version, you have some addiction to this thing. Whatever it is honor, courage, commitment, patriotism, service in the national defense, shooting bad guys in the face, you know, and eye-flapping them, whatever it is. It kept you in there. And that, then, is the best way that I could describe it to that Green Beret, as we're both getting out not as a clinician, just as a journeyman is like that need to go feels like I'm an addict toward patriotism and he's like I feel the same way and we're both getting out.
Speaker 2:Having done that right and contracting, I started to see that you know, I'm still attuned to some of the human intelligence pieces and assessments and selections.
Speaker 2:And I'm talking to our unit psychologist and he's like you should do this work because these guys will talk to you in a way that they will never talk to me. I was like, all right, that's cool, so I'll get into the psychology school and I did. And as soon as I got in there, I was like I don't want to work with adults, because adults are fully baked cakes, and it's like you got to unbake the cake. It's like let me work with kids, and this fits with the soft mentality of like getting to the left of the boom. So, before the kid is destroyed by bad parenting, it's like let me get in there when they're eight and give these kids coping skills, or when they're teenagers that are suicidal. I spend a year with suicidal teens in a hospital. Um, learn the coping skills so that they don't turn into the adults. Let me hand me the ingredients so this cake is baked right away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, then that's. That's actually. That's interesting. That's where you went first.
Speaker 1:Um, I found myself in similar situation. I got my mindfulness certification and started teaching mindfulness and then I got hired to teach and I it never said anything about teaching kids, it just said young adults, potentially veterans. And then, as I was doing the interviews, like have you ever worked kids? Like, I don't even have kids of my own. I am terrified of working with kids and it was extremely rewarding, but I wonder if you had the same experience.
Speaker 1:I didn't expect to A be able to be so impactful and for kids to pick up mindfulness and meditation much faster than adults. But it was absolutely one of the most painful things to see when little ones are coming from a very bad environment and, ultimately, one of the things where I was like you know, I can deal with a veteran when they're having a bad day and I can take those phone calls at 3am all day every day. Hope I don't have to, but I will be there. But when a little one is dealing with horrible nightmare things, it was just one of those things where I'm like I can't do this. Have you found yourself able? How do you navigate that in that space?
Speaker 2:You know, I think that perhaps, ironically, that's what combat prepares you for. After my first combat tour in 2003, I came home and I had this need to mentor, basically. And so I went out and, you know, rejoined the Lithuanian boy Scouts and was like, hey, you know I'm here, make me your camp commandant or whatever. And uh, you know that summer of 2003 was impactful to those young boys now who are adults in their own respect, following retirement, getting into child psychology. In my internship year I spent at Department of Behavioral Health for San Bernardino and did the mental health evaluations for kids that are detained by DCFS. So what I found in my several years of working with kids is I have the stamina, so right. So we're professional sufferers, is what I say when you join the military. It doesn't suck enough, give me more and somebody needs to do that Right. So this taps back into whatever it is that is my addiction. Like has to be me. Or, you know, if I look at it the other way, it's like I can do this and other people can't. I can listen to this story of these two boys whose mother's on meth and lives in a flop house and somebody OD'd and died there, and so these kids are detained and I'm doing their nonverbal, even though their ages they should be able to speak. Even though they're ages, they should be able to speak. I could take that and work with that. And what helps, helped me or continues to help me to get through that is my intervention is helping them get to a better place. And of the 50 or so that I did over the course of the year, only one of the kids, one of the teenagers, was not in a better place and that was sort of her own making. So that's the. And then you're also up against the challenge of what can I do in one hour per week? And you do the best that you can. It's a dialectic assumption that everybody's doing the best that they can and we can do better, and that's hard for people to hold both truths at the same time. Maybe that's part of being in combat, as I was able to figure that out for myself.
Speaker 2:And now just the calmness, like if I've been hit you know 2003, I'm hit with artillery fire, I've been IED when I have a eight-year-old boy in my office who's destroying all of my toys. It's like it doesn't bother me and I understand what's happening to for that place. He needs to destroy these things to elicit a reaction because he wants to get kicked out of my office. But I'm not going to do that and so that's like step one I earn this kid's respect and then we complete a whole therapeutic um the rest of the year with therapy with that boy. Pluses and minuses are so that's kind of that combat background slash psychology piece got meshed together to help work with these kids that are coming from bad places, have traumatic experiences, have to set the battery here because I'm going home to my own kids um, and I don't need to drag this child's challenges with life, that he doesn't have a father in into my own world yep, being able to leave it, just like a lot of us tried doing it in the military.
Speaker 1:We always said, hey, leave, leave, work at work and it's like so that's the emotions
Speaker 2:is. It's like with with uh. When covid happened and everybody started working from home or living where they work, a lot of those physical barriers changed. So if you're in the team room, you go to work, you're in your uniform and then you leave your uniform in the team room and you put civilian clothes on and you go home. You know, if you get to a unit where you're always wearing civilian clothes, it's a little bit different, but still you have like a physical barrier there where it's like, okay, well, my phone is outside the office, so when I have my phone now I'm me again and not, you know, warrior version of me, but that's uh. So that's gone now for a lot of people. And then. So eventually I had to get a job and the va was hiring um, kind of this is a long way of getting back to where did the book start from? And I did go to a friend's retirement ceremony and I was talking to uh, one of the wives of the other guys, and she was writing a book about the wives' experiences and I had wanted to make my dissertation based on this warrior withdrawal syndrome, because the whole time I'm in there I'm taking notes to myself saying, like PTSD.
Speaker 2:Is this Adjustment disorder? Is this adjustment disorder? Is this so in theory, you have six months. In theory, in the big book of boo-boos, the diagnostics and statistics manual, you have six months to get over something. Adjustment disorder? You lose your legs. You have six months to get over it. If you're not over it, then it's no longer adjustment to your new life's situation. This is now depression or whatever it is. Those are the symptoms. You depress that you have no legs because in theory you've adjusted to the fact that you have no legs. So I was like all right, but I got out a long time ago. I haven't been to combat in you know 10 years or whatever. It was at that point in time. So it's not adjustment disorder. And on the ptsd side of the house I feel going back to contracting, it's like. But I feel good when I'm around unit guys, it's like.
Speaker 2:Just a couple weeks ago I was with with a bunch of them again and I was like you know, not only um do I have to shield what I say to civilians because they don't like my humor, they don't like the things that I talk you.
Speaker 2:I'm sure my neighbor doesn't have severed head photos of suicide bombers on his phone and I can't really be upfront with that with most of the people that you meet. But then you start adding layers of like well, they've never been to Iraq or Afghanistan, and so some of these things don't make sense. This is the common culture that you have with other veterans, regardless of service. The verbiage is similar, and then on top of that I got the added layer of being at that high level where you're underneath more access control measures and it's like, finally, I'm with people that I don't have to hold anything back. We can freely talk about all the dumb stuff that we did and got away with and didn't get away with, and that's so freeing and you feel like yourself again. So that's the withdrawal. Just that one weekend with the buddies makes me feel good again, and I see this with my reservists who are like I'm living for that drill weekend and then the next three weeks out of the month. I just hate my life.
Speaker 2:And we use those coping skills that got you through deployments, the things like I call them all fast forwarding time, video games, drinking, pouring yourself into work, whatever it is. I'm just working to get through it so I can be myself again. Working to get through it so I can be myself again. So the dissertation was going to be to try to describe this syndrome, cause I was like it's not PTSD, it's too long for it to continue to be adjustment disorder. And I went through a fair amount of research and my dissertation chair is like there isn't sufficient amount of stuff in the world to talk about this, there's only what you're writing. I was like, yes, sure, so I'll make a qualitative analysis, I'll talk to 10 soft guys that I know and we will sort it out. I'll diagram it Like here's the cluster of symptoms. And then around the same time I got a hold of Dr Freud's work operator syndrome and I'm looking at that and I was like, okay, cool, so I'm focusing in on the mental health aspect of it and is that the precursor? And then the physical contributions of being a special operations guy just magnify it. But when I went to work at the VA, so anyway, I got denied that's not my dissertation, so I just gave them. They wanted a ham sandwich. I gave them a ham sandwich, but then I was like, all right, I got to write this up somehow. So I took a fellowship at the VA and I was like, let me start helping here. Let me just describe this set of symptoms, the anger issues, difficulties with communication, identity fracture, not knowing what you're supposed to do, you know the substance abuse pieces, whatever it is, that fast forwards through time and I came at it kind of like you were saying way back in the beginning that my hypothesis was this had to be a soft issue, because I'm a soft guy and I have it and I have it and it uh the. The cause of this is multiple deployments, you know, wrapping your identity so tightly around the uniform that when the uniform's gone, sometimes I describe it as your, your uh, class A's. Or your dress blues is your exoskeleton and everything that you do is designed to uh build that out. Out, because that's your, where you have all your rewards on there I use. You know if anybody's been to germany, I'm like did you shoot the german shooting course? Yes, why? Because you wanted to add the german shooting cord to your uniform. You know, did?
Speaker 2:I've made this joke before too like who would trust a thai jump master or a thai parachute or a thai aircraft? Well, anybody. Who? Who wants Thai jump wings? And they look cool. So I'm going to. Why do you affiliate with such and such? Right, I still don't understand affiliation. I'll affiliate with whatever group and just put some ribbons on there and that's how the behavioral conditioning is designed and it works. And then it's all gone. So all of your effort sometimes?
Speaker 2:The analogy I use is like your life is a car and then you join the military, we put you in the well, deck the ship and your job becomes to manage the ship, keep the ship running, and you pay no attention to your own car.
Speaker 2:And then, when it's time to this is for maritime guys, for army guys that use a C-130. When it's time for you to get out and the green light comes on, you're like where's my parachute? And they're like we don't pack you a parachute. You know jump master's like, don't worry about it, the VA will catch you. And they kick you out the door. And yeah, for the va, I will catch you, I will have a baseball glove and I'm on the wrong doozy. So for my maritime guys. It's like, hey, we just push your vehicle out the back of the ship and it's like I hope you've been paying attention to it and checking your battery and replacing the oil. But it's like nope, nope, and none of this has changed right. So I work with, I worked with a peer support who was vietnam veteran, and so he had almost the same analogy. He's like when you're out, when you get out of the army, it's like the army kicks you out of the car, right into a knife fight, like you know that fits too, both are equally as good.
Speaker 1:It's so true, and that's why I feel like this medium is so important. If you can make it digestible, if you can bring people on't have it. But that's the beauty of being able to use your, your experience, your own personal journey to help others and that's what we really need to champion. For guys it's like hey, like maybe the best thing you can do with your suffering is to push through it, rebound and then help somebody else not go through the same pain. Um, because whether you're the tip of the spear or an 88 Mike, you're going to have issues transitioning right. That's just. That's just it. I never realized it until I went through it. And then that's an echo that everybody shares. And whether you're the star major, at the very tip to the lowest private, all of us go through it.
Speaker 2:And that is what I learned in my first year at the VA. So I entered thinking that this is a special operator only issue or it was a combat MOS issue, and then very quickly I saw that no, this affects just about everybody who joins, and so I had to revisit my hypothesis. And now, basically, the way that I take a look at it is well, basic training, advanced AIT, boot camp, wherever you go to, is sufficiently significant enough of a traumatic event, if you will, or an external factor onto your life that it changes you essentially forever. You're indoctrinated into the warrior culture and that's enough. So whether your MOS is the tuba player for the Marine Corps band or you're, you know, a wheeled vehicle mechanic, an administrator, it doesn't matter. And one of the reasons that I realize that now or I can say that somewhat freely now is if we're an all-volunteer force, so already you're predisposed to whatever is going to be the reward system that you have in the military reinforcement mechanisms and punishments. And it's not like your recruiter is kind of like they're not actuaries but they learn fast. So the recruiter is not going to the ballet studio to pick up 11 Bravos or open contracts, he's going to the football team, the MMA gym, you know, maybe the mall, although kids don't go to the mall anymore. And then I say this sometimes it's like you can. You can, in retrospect, take take a guess about how motivated of a recruiter you were, based off of how long you were on delayed entry Cause if you are not a motivated recruit, you ship next day because the recruiter's whole purpose is to make quota. But if you're like, hey, my dad was in the arm, my dad was a ranger, his dad was a ranger, I'm going to be a ranger. Cool, I'm going to put you into late entry, because when I need to hit my quota in December, when nobody's enlisting, I'm just going to give you a call back, but they don't tell you that and so that's all part of it.
Speaker 2:And when I teach a class for the VA, what I try to do for these veterans is the exit interview that you didn't get through transition readiness seminar or transition assistance program or whatever they call it now. And the Army is trying to do it better, but it's still an anachronism, because the army seems to think that if you have a job so we have the Nexus, we have SkillsBridge then you're good. Hey, you just need a job man and it's like, okay, we'll make you a corporate now. And corporate is sufficient. And it's not sufficient. We need to undo the fact that you can put your hands in your pockets. We need to undo the fact that your shoes and boots don't need to be laced left over right.
Speaker 2:And I love that example because then I, you know, I got a 70 year old veteran who still laces his shoes left over right. I'm like, do you know why you do that? I just that's why I do it. Because at boot camp or at basic it's one of the most yeah, sorry, yeah no, at basic training you would get helmet fire from the di's if they were. And there's no practical purpose for lacing left over right, it's just another thing they can gig you on.
Speaker 2:And so your brain develops to two-factor avoidance. Like as long as I lace my shoes left over right, you know nobody's gonna yell at me. But now I'm seven years old. So I point out to this vietnam veteran's like, hey, man, you, you still think like that the di is gonna come through the wall here like the kool-aid, you know punch guy, and yell at you because your shoes aren't laced the right way. But realistically, that's just the insufficient justification effect, like, okay, I do this because I like it this way, or I will always carry things in my right hand, or, sorry, my left hand and not my right, because you never know when I need to salute, so I'm just going to always carry bags on my left side and it becomes a habit and some of those habits extinguish on their own. So PCCs, pcis, I don't walk around my vehicle and check it for IEDs or tags or anything like that, I just get it and go to Walmart.
Speaker 2:Five and tens man we got to check.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not riding in the center of the lane all the time because that costs a lot.
Speaker 2:And then on the other side of it this is a challenge with some civilian providers is one of the PTSD symptoms is hypervigilance, and I say well, okay, but I call it situational awareness and I'm working with guys who survived based off of their situational awareness. And then this comes back into that two-factor theory of avoidance. It's like if I'm alert, I'm paying attention on the highway in California there's some crazy drivers and I get home safely, well then I'm immediately rewarded for continuing to be on high alert. If I position myself in the most tactically advantageous spot in the restaurant, when I'm eating out with my family and nothing happens, well, but I'm immediate. You know there's the immediate reward of like if something happened, I would have been ready. And then you know there's the immediate reward of like if something happened, I would have been ready. And then you know, uh, god forbid that something does happen. And then it's like that is the reinforcement mechanism that will just make you do this for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a frustrating thing. I trying to get guys to understand like you earned or you learned some amazing things that were so beneficial, but it doesn't mean that you have to walk around the rest of your life with a high and tight, with a T-shirt that says I'm a disgruntled, broken veteran, Leave me alone.
Speaker 2:Your grunt style T-shirt, your DD-214 on the back of your truck. You know how large can your combat infantryman's badge be? Well, it can take up the whole rear windshield if you wanted to. But that's a challenge too, because that's so. This is the issue is, you are in the warrior culture and so in the acculturation models that, for better or for worse, I take them from the psychology community. The civilians want you to assimilate. Worst I've taken from the psychology community the civilians want you to assimilate. The civilians want you to drop all of your values.
Speaker 2:In Southern California, punctuality is not a thing. When the kid's birthday party says it starts at three, nobody is there at three and it's frustrating to the veterans. Like come on man, like hey, I did. Suppression of enemy air defense 30 seconds matters, 15 seconds matters. Like the mark goes 15 seconds prior to rounds on target and we have to calculate time of flight in order to make sure these things happen. But they don't care and they don't want you to be frustrated or show up frustrated when people are late. That's assimilation. So best we can hope for is integration.
Speaker 2:I will keep those values that I want to hold for my military career Patriotism. I will fly the flag. You know I will be punctual, even if nobody else is. I will have responsibility and accountability. I will do the thing that I said I would do, even though I don't expect others to do it, others to do it. Unfortunately, we find ourselves sort of below the waterline either separated, where I only hang out with military, I only hang out with veterans, I only go to MMA gyms I don't try to talk to other people because they don't get it, and maybe I can survive in that tiny commune or I become marginalized, in which case, hey, active duty is not gonna call and I lose track of my veteran friends as we all disperse throughout the country and I'm not a civilian and so I'm left there all by myself. And if I'm in the separated side, that's when I'm wearing my grunt style t-shirt because I want you to know don't tread on me, I will wear the snake on my shirt so that when you're walking up on me it's like yeah, this is where it's at, bro. And if I take that in and I'm not accepted by that BJJ gym or whatever it is, and I become marginalized. So this is where guys find themselves in those first six months post end of service.
Speaker 2:Is you still feel attached to the active duty component, but the active duty doesn't give an F about you anymore. I saw a post a while back where some veteran was talking about how it's been a year since they got out and their company commander hasn't called them once. And at first I was like, well, no, no, kidding, you know really, like you're out man, why would your company commander call you ever at all? Like they got to move on with you know training for the next shenanigan, you know the next goat rodeo. But then I thought more about it and I was like that's part of the problem. Is that the culture? I am no longer accepted by that culture and yet I still identify with it. So that's the.
Speaker 2:You know, these are the pieces that go into the substance abuse model that I used to describe what it is to join the culture. And then, when you're out of it, anytime you get close to it or you have like a night with a buddy that you went to combat with and you feel like yourself again and maybe that's sufficient to get you through the next six months. Um, and we don't understand why. And so what's? What my goal is to try to do now is to help guys understand why.
Speaker 2:The other challenge that we face is I mean, I was the same way. When you are on active duty, you can't teach me anything. And for the, for the first couple of years that I was out, I was like I will, I will refuse to work with Marines because you can't teach a Marine anything. They have, they're experiential learners, all of of them. They have to figure it out on their own. And I saw this as I'm like trying to counsel some recon guys about their next deployment and I'm like, dude, you had, I know the two guys who went before you. They set up a whole bunch of stuff for you. Where did all of that go? It's like, oh yeah, I just kind of threw it aside, I'm going to do my own thing.
Speaker 1:It's like, oh my god stop reinvent the wheel every single time my point, stop proving my point. Yeah, but that's done something good, but I'm gonna do it better, right? Yeah, you know this this range at 29 palm is.
Speaker 2:You know, the army or the marines version of ntc has been run the same way for 30 years, I guess. Now and then you get a brand new company commander's like but I'm rommel, so it's two up and one back. Well, I'm gonna take it from the east side instead of the west side, like everybody up, and it got so bad and, uh, when I went as a company commander they wouldn't even let you come up with your own scheme of maneuver. Like, just just stop it, guys, it's canned. Yeah, like, okay, we're gonna hand you this schema maneuver because it's more important that you guys get trained on this stuff than you know. You try to call for helicopters for an assault that doesn't call. You know, have any helicopter. We're not throwing hand grenades here, we're not issuing you any hand, but I need hand grenades. So that's that's sort of the challenge, and and the best that I can do to to people who are getting out is to say like you need to start thinking about this and I'm happy that the army lets you do it two years out.
Speaker 2:For retirees, the challenge is one. The other thing I learned at the VA is one enlistment is sufficient. Four years is enough to do this. I don't want to call it damage, because it's not. It's a great thing to have to be a veteran. Um, and four years, so basic training, is sufficient to put you into this culture and to especially because it happens for most people in that identity forming phase of their life ages 17 to 25, which will always be the bedrock of the rest of your life. So when you're 80 years old you'll fall back to those of the most crisp and clear memories that you got and I can see this working with Vietnam vets. Those four years is sufficient enough to put you into that place where, when it, when you get spit out by active duty, okay, the guy that's only in there for four doesn't have two years to prep for their end of active service. And if you enlisted at 18, you're 20, you're not even fully formed in the frontal cortex to think through this stuff. And I'll have some younger vets that are just like I don't know what the heck, I don't know who I am or what I'm doing, and have some younger vets that are just like I don't know what the heck, I don't know who I am or what I'm doing, and that's where existentialism comes in and I tend to end my course that I teach with Camus' Myth of Sisyphus.
Speaker 2:I have to explain it to most people and I say don't bother trying. Well, you can try to read it on your own. It's very dry, very boring and very difficult. But Camusus basically says the only question worth asking is should or should I not kill myself? And he uses sisyphus as an example, who pushes the rock up the hill every day and the rock goes down the hill every night, and so the next morning he pushes the rock back up the hill and it's like. This is how you live your life. And as long as the rock is national defense and this ties into frankel, the other example that I use as long as the rock is national defense and this ties into Frankel, the other example that I used as long as that purpose, the rock is sufficient, you can do it forever, you can endure any level of suffering and your four years in the Army, navy, marine Corps, coast Guard, air Force I haven't had any Space Force veterans yet.
Speaker 1:Not yet.
Speaker 2:Waiting for my first guardian to come in. Their challenge is yet to come. Yeah with the facehugger from the alien thing in his or her service record and then I'll see there's 0% service connected for that. It's like well done, vba, well done, not service connected at all. That's just what happens when you go to thailand you get a face hugger.
Speaker 1:Look, everybody gets this. You'll be fine take some penicillin 15 non-profits and on the back side to help you with that here's your shot.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, oh so, uh, you know, so I don't know. I guess the challenge is like, uh, and I find myself even now like I'm working with a recruiter to go back into the reserves so that I can talk directly. Really, yeah, so it never ends. And people ask me and I have this I have had veteran patients at the va who work for, like HUDVASH, the housing and urban development for veterans, assistance to secure housing and they're asking me, like, how do you set boundaries? And it's like you know it's a struggle. Like I will push the time limits for veterans. I will go above and beyond, at cost to me, in a way that you would for active duty guys, and at cost to me in a way that you would for active duty guys, and I wrote about it in the book like that, you know, tried to get back in through a Navy internship. Because it's like this is the left of the boom. You know, maybe they'll believe it when it comes from somebody in the pickle suit. It's like, yeah, bro, like you need to take a second here and figure out who you are. Who are you without the uniform? Take a second here and figure out who you are. Who are you without the uniform? And this isn't necessarily specific to the military right, like I see this in, like Tom Brady Sometimes I'll use him as an example what are you without football man? And you're retired and then unretired because he's a football quarterback. And what did it cost him to do that extra year Apparently his wife and kids? And so that is model is very similar to what happens to a lot of these veterans, a lot of us. Like, six months within the six months of EAS, I'm divorced, I don't know what I'm doing with myself, and all of those things compound put you into that marginalized category because your active duty company commander can't be bothered to give you a call to see how you're doing, and, uh, the civilians don't want you either. And it's like what? What kind of work can I find that competes with having been in a levin bravo, papa, who's not a dirty nasty leg, and yes, there's nothing like it. And then there's also the, the challenges, especially for those. It's like you're. You're the plato's man who's left the cave. You see a meritocracy, generally speaking. You see that there. Or you see how, even in a meritocracy, things can get twisted.
Speaker 2:And for most people you've traveled to other parts of the country and the longer that you're in you've seen other countries. And to my counterparts, like even in postgraduate school, it's like, like, do you understand that? There's a question comes up like do you think america would have ended slavery on its own? And like, yes and uh, then we have to have the discussion like, are you not aware that slavery still happens? Like I've been to africa yeah, those, I've seen them.
Speaker 2:I've unintentionally contributed to the continued slave trade in the form of, like, sexual exploitation. It's like you've ever been to a buy me drinky bar, even if you didn't buy a drink. Just your presence continues to perpetuate people being taken and put into places and held against their will. Is it indentured servitude? I don't know. It just depends on if you can send remittances to your family or not. It indentured servitude? I don't know. It just depends on if you can send remittances to your family or not. But this is that aperture is open and then you come back and then your peers are like I feel like I was, uh, I feel like I was. You know, now I'm triggered by, or I feel like I was uh marginalized because somebody threw a milkshake at me. Dude, yeah, did he call you a bad name?
Speaker 1:he did.
Speaker 2:He used the wrong pronouns and I didn't know what to do. You didn't know what to do. Unfortunately you didn't have an m4 to fire back at them. I don't. I mean, I don't know what the appropriate response is to that. But so those are the challenges again, right, all of these things that you are now aware of, having been in the warrior culture, like I said, and even inside of that.
Speaker 2:So the other piece for those who didn't go to combat is I struggle. I don't struggle with myself, but I see others struggling with it, because there's an imposter syndrome. So I'll start a group, I'll ask people to tell me where, you know, where did they serve MOS, any deployments, and then I'll get like a I only did four years, so I'm already diminishing my service. Or I just went to Korea. I didn't go to, you know, combat or war, anywhere, anywhere. And I mean I was working with one, uh, young marine who eventually, it came up in the course of our therapy because he's talking about some sf communicator buddy of his who's physically got a lot of physical damage. You know, he's got a lot of physical pain and problems back injury, the injuries and I asked him the question like would you trade all of his physical ailments so that you could call yourself a combat veteran. And this young former Marine is like, yeah, I guess so. And then in that moment I'm like, wait a minute. So like, is this an issue between you and I? Because you know my background, are you envious of, of my service? Because if that's the case, it's like this is a whole other level of things that we need to start working on, and I would see this even on active duty.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's guys who got stuck on the rock in okinawa for oaf1 and they just are miserable because there aren't very many marines who join to just scuba dive and naha. It's like no, we all wanted to fight and just based off of timing, it didn't happen. And that's one of the reasons why we I included kept climbing to the tip of the spear. And then, when you're at the tip of the spear, it's still like it's a, it's a roll of the dice, man, like you know, there's a jort cycle and it's either you're going or you're not going. And then every once in a while, like for bin laden, they're like okay, well, we want to hand pick guys, but only from red squadron. Well, god damn it, you know yeah, yeah it's.
Speaker 1:It's such a weird thing that guys feel like they have to proclaim how many combat tours they did or didn't do or things they missed out on. I see it all the time on the podcast. Guys, we go before before we get started. I only served in iraq. It's like, dude, it's okay, no one's gonna judge you.
Speaker 2:No one's gonna be like ah well, your service isn't worthy right, and that's part of all that hypothesis getting changed, and I go back to saying like, hey, the only thing that matters is you do it, you got through basic, because it means that you have whatever that gene or whatever that is that fires in your brain that causes you to be addicted to service was tapped and continues to be tapped. If it wasn't, you either would have said no to the recruiter or you would have been separated from failure to adapt, and so the indoctrination is done. And then you know, like I was saying before, nobody, nobody I don't like to use the word because it has a lot of negative connotations but deprograms you. There's no deprogram, so there's no untraining.
Speaker 2:I trained you to go from zero to 100. I trained your tiny little four-cylinder engine into being a big block v8, like a 302 or 454, depending if you're a for or Chevy guy, because that is how our HPA access works. And I need you to respond with hardcore versus intensity when the round comes your direction. I need you, even if you're a clerk, to respond because lives that back to that 15 seconds, you know, plus 15 for, uh, for, minus 15 for the mark to the time, uh, time on target for uh, for minus 15 for the mark to the time.
Speaker 1:Uh, time on target. And then have you? Have you noticed that there is also an a higher number of our veterans that didn't serve in combat theaters that are struggling with issues like suicide and depression a lot more, because one of the things that I really notice is when I talk to somebody and they have that initial shrinking down, feeling like they're not worthy of mentioning that they serve. They often share that they've dealt with suicide ideation, drug addiction, and a lot of it comes from them saying I just feel like I didn't do enough, I didn't see combat, I'm not worthy of talking, and that's why I think it's really important for for us to kill the myth that you, just because I served in this capacity or just because I went to these combat theaters, doesn't make me better than you like. I want you to feel like you have a seat at the table as well, because people are suffering and they're they're feeling like they can't talk about it because they didn't see, they didn't go to the big game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they never saw the elephant, right? Yeah, um, I don't. I don't know, statistically I can't speak to to if there's more or less. I certainly can say that the imposter syndrome piece is is significant, and so if I'm already feeling marginalized, right. So, going back to the four quadrants of the acculturation, I'm not accepted by the military and I'm not accepted by I feel like I won't be accepted by veterans. So if I'm going to go to the VFW and put my hat on and I can't put any pins on that thing then it's like I won't feel like AB long and sometimes you then end up doing the opposite action, which is we're back to overloading, like I need everybody to know my DD 214. And so I will have the combat infantryman's badge tattooed on my forehead, you know tastefully or under my eyes.
Speaker 1:So people think I'm post malone maybe it'll fit in great with the kids, don't really? They'll take a shiny to it, yeah oh but you find, I mean you'll find that right.
Speaker 2:So like guys will have like yeah, and I say this about marines anytime, like even in the airport, I'm 99 sure that that guy's a marine, and then I don't have to. I have to like wait maybe two minutes and then I will see the thing. That's like there's the last percentage point, like oh, there's the ukulele, an anchor tattoo or whatever yeah, man, I do the same same damn thing.
Speaker 1:Same thing every, every. I just talked to a buddy about this. I I moved away from the hub, I'm no longer near. Uh, we're, you know, we're in the footprint of seven special forces group and, uh, I go to the you know, sign up for a gym, go there and I immediately hone in on.
Speaker 1:I'm like that guy's a green beret. I don't know what he's doing here, but that guy's a green beret and he did the same thing and it was like comes up and he's like, yeah, cool tattoo, did you get it in? Uh, columbia? I'm like, yeah, green beret, yeah, green beret. It's like it's like we all search for that commonality and we want it because we want to feel connected. And and it kind of helps me understand why the grunt style T-shirts are out there and why guys wear them, because I've heard the same thing. It's like I wear it and I'm hoping another veteran sees it and it connects with them and then we can have a moment of talking and then I understand and it's like, all cheesy slogans aside, it serves as a connection point for a group of individuals that want to have that connection, that miss their service.
Speaker 2:It's the near and far identification symbols. Yes, yes, withdrawal piece. If I can link to another veteran and have a brief communication about how awesome it was in columbia. And you know, as a seventh group guy, I'm sure at some point in time you had a columbian wife. And because they all, you all do, no, not the anomaly.
Speaker 1:Uh, I love white women.
Speaker 2:I married, uh, the just blonde hair, blue eyes, was just she's perfect and uh yeah, in every way, um, but right, so that's that with you know, uh, detracted from the, the point there I was going for, but the you know where I'm headed to is is to say that like, but you get that little piece of I feel like myself again, yeah, and so if I am worrying that stuff, if I am sending out, if I am transmitting, I am a veteran, it's both. Uh, this is the guys that are in that separated category. Yeah, where I'm transmitting, don't fuck with me, I'm a, you know. You know, even my sailors are like I can kill you with my hands. I'm like, really, dude, you're a machinist mate, like with your hands plus a wrench, all right, man, uh, but it's, it's, you're projecting out, right, so I'm my, I'm broadcasting, don't mess with me, you civilians, and I'm also broadcasting. Approach to other veterans so that I can have that moment of feeling like myself again.
Speaker 1:And that's the withdrawal, yeah, yeah yeah, dude, before I let you go. What? How much longer are you saying you're trying to get back into the reserves? Is it almost complete? Are you almost back in? And what's that going to look like?
Speaker 2:I have no idea. They've tried a couple of times and I told the recruiter this time look man, if you want to do the hard work of turning off my retirement pension or convincing the Marine Corps to not pay me on the drill weekends, I will do it because I my motivation is to get in front of the PFCs that aren't going to be able to go to a skills bridge or go to you know legitimate TRS program and say like, look man, you're 22. This is going to be with you for the rest of your life and I need you to start. Hey, here's your homework. Come back in two weeks or whatever it is, and tell me who are you once the uniform is gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and where can we get the?
Speaker 2:book. It's available anywhere. You can buy stuff on the internets, so on Amazon uh, barnes and Noble uh, the publisher has it on their site to ballast books.
Speaker 1:Nice, heck, yeah. And if people want to connect with you, how, where can we find you, hi you can?
Speaker 2:you can call the VA. Uh, no, but legitimately. If you do that, you'll get the call center. Put Varpus on the phone right now. I don't know how to say his last name. Uh, it's very long. Uh, it's italian, right, that'll get you not even in the wheelhouse. Um, uh. So on instagram at dr varpas and on x at dr varpas nice I.
Speaker 1:I can't thank you enough for being here today and for writing this book that I think everybody needs to read because, like I said, it highlights something that we all feel, whether it's the first day after you pivot or six months down the line you're going to go through this withdrawal. Please pick it up, do yourself a favor, get two copies, give it to somebody you care about for when they go through their journey. Because let me tell you, folks, it's real. You can be as ignorant as I was, but I hope that after listening to a few of these episodes and listening to VARPA's book on audio it's available on audio, right? Not yet, I guess Not yet.
Speaker 2:Oh, man, trying to fight that because guys are like I don't want to read, it's an audiobook I had a guy just told me the other day he's like I'm an infantry, I'm a grunt, I don't read, okay, but you're you retired as a colonel? You're not just a grunt?
Speaker 1:I do it. They all say the same thing.
Speaker 2:All of them say crayons okay, man, you have a postgraduate degree well screw it. Yeah, my favorite, contact me, I'll read the book for you.
Speaker 1:Partial the blue barbers. Thank you for being here, brother. Thank you for what you're doing. I. I hope you're able to get back in I would we need to do another? We need to run it back and do another episode once you make it it back in cause. That would be amazing. Uh, don't go enlisted.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, my kids are like you need to go shoot bad guys again. I was like no, no, no, no, I'm going to be a doctor this time around, Like I don't necessarily need to ever pick up a rifle again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, not at all. Please don't. Thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you all next time. Till then, take care. Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to support us, head on over to buymeacoffeecom. Forward slash SecHop podcast and buy us a coffee. Connect with us on Instagram, ask for TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhallcom for exclusive content, resources and updates. And remember we get through this together. If you're still listening, the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week. Thank you.
