When You Picture a Soldier, You Probably Don’t Have This in Mind

When you think of special operations forces in Afghanistan, you probably picture a group of men: buff, tattooed and sunburnt. But right beside some of them, a “band of sisters” kept them safe. In her 2015 book “Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield,” journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon details a little-known Army program that assigned all-female units to support male soldiers. Known as Cultural Support Teams (CST), these women helped gather intelligence from mothers and daughters in Afghan households, while male counterparts conducted raids to find insurgents.
“In a conservative and traditional society like Afghanistan, particularly places where the insurgency was strongest, male soldiers — no matter how good they were at fighting — could not speak to Afghan women,” Lemmon recounts at a Got Your 6 Storytellers event in Los Angeles. Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who spent an extensive amount of time in Afghanistan for her previous book “The Dressmaker of Khair Khana,” reported the story of Lt. Ashley White and her unit through hundreds of hours of interviews over the course of two years. In an interview with NationSwell, Lemmon discussed what she learned about women’s role in the military during her research.
What inspired you to share the story of CST in Afghanistan?
It was the impossibility of the story on the surface — this group of teammates who became friends and then family at a time when women officially were banned from ground combat. Here was a group of Americans who answered their country’s call to serve, who went onto the battlefield alongside Rangers and SEALs, and who were forever changed by it. They broke ground in service to their country, and we didn’t know them. I wanted to share this slice of history we didn’t know.
While embedded, what did you learn about what it means to serve as an American soldier?
I saw young Americans going in and out of Afghanistan, risking their lives for their nation and for the friends they had come to love. I wanted to share that connection, that friendship, that desire to serve.
What does camaraderie look like in an all-female unit?
Much the same as in an all-male unit. It was about friendship and sisterhood and caring for one another — only it was even more extreme because they were all they had out there, the only people who knew and understood all that they saw and did at the tip of the spear while women officially weren’t there.
How did meeting these female warriors change your idea of womanhood?
This story took me into a world I had never known of women who were funny and fierce, driven and kind, intense and warm. So many times the women we see on our pages or on our screens are one or the other. I wanted to show these women in all their dimensions and to tell a story that was true to who they are and were.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon talks about her experience in Afghanistan at a Got Your 6 Storyteller event.

What three words describe your experience abroad?
Afghanistan is a generous, inspiring and heartbreaking place.
What is the quality you most admired in the troops you met?
Tenacity and grit alongside great heart.
How can someone support veterans?
Get involved. Listen to veterans’ stories. Help veterans with their transition into the next phase of life and be aware of the wars we have asked them to fight. Too many are too distant from the battle and don’t want to hear what it was like for the 1 percent of the country that has fought 100 percent of its 15 years of war. That must change.
What unique challenges do female veterans face?
We must recognize that veterans are women and women are veterans. We must expand our version of the veteran to make sure it includes women and the valor they have shown these past decades of war. Otherwise, our antiquated views of what women have and are doing keeps us as a country from offering the respect and the support they deserve from us.
MORE: This Resourceful Soldier Goes From Fighting on the Front Lines to Running a Fashion Line 

The High-Energy Activity That’s Healing the Invisible Scars of War

Jeremiah Montell, a Navy petty officer with 17 years of service, takes out his frustrations at his UFC gym. “He can knock the heck out of a boxing bag,” says Lynn Coffland, founder of Catch a Lift Fund, a nonprofit that funds a gym membership or home workout equipment for 2,500 post-9/11 veterans, including Montell. In the past year, Lynn witnessed as Montell lost 70 pounds, stopped taking medication and began crafting homemade American flags — all signs of healing.
Lynn has seen firsthand how physical activity and healing go hand in hand. Her brother Christopher J. Coffland, a fitness enthusiast always heading out to “catch a lift” — his term for hitting the gym — enlisted in the Army one month before he turned 42 years old. Dropping him off at the airport, Lynn asked through tears, “What do I do if you don’t come back?” After cracking a joke, Chris got serious, saying, “I probably won’t come back, but I’ve had a great run and I’m ready to meet Jesus. If I can put myself in the place of another man that has family back home, I will.” In 2009, two weeks after being deployed to Afghanistan, a roadside bomb killed Chris and injured two other Marines. As Lynn pondered how to memorialize her brother, messages from people who’d lifted weights with him in boot camp started flooding Lynn’s inbox.
“There was no program that the VA had set up yet for fitness,” Lynn remembers. “Every active-duty service-member has to be physically fit…Many men and women I talk to, they say [exercise is] their happiest memories. If they’re on base or out in another country, they work out. They have lots of laughs, a lot of friendship and bonding. They come home, and everything’s different. They don’t even know who they are anymore, they say. We get them back to that very basic core that they know existed, which was fitness.”
Catch a Lift Fund started by gifting gym memberships to three veterans in February 2010. The soldiers could pick any spot they wanted: 24-Hour Fitness or Crossfit, a place with pilates machines or a pool. Recovery and reintegration started almost immediately.
To find more participants, Lynn’s father wrote letters to every Veterans Administration hospital nationwide. Today, the group has a waiting list of more than 300 veterans. For those who find a gym stress-inducing, or those in rural areas, the fund pays for home systems.
“The culture has taught them that you have to push through,” but trauma “never goes away,” Lynn says. “You have to work on it so it stays at bay. Through fitness, through friendship and camaraderie, that’s how they’re healing.”

From Combat to Comedy: 13 Questions with Marine Veteran Justine Cabulong

Out at a bar, Justine Cabulong, a former Marine Corps lieutenant who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, sometimes gets asked, “Wait. They let girls in the Marines?” Usually, Cabulong takes a sip of her G-and-T, patiently nods and replies, “Yep, I’ve shot weapons with these tiny hands.”
As the only female member of her family to join the armed services, Cabulong has always bucked the trend. Overseas, she relied on her sense of humor to defuse confrontations, chaos and self-doubt. But once she returned home, Cabulong realized her military experience didn’t align with Americans’ traditional image of a buff white male soldier. Above, filmed at a recent Got Your 6 Storytellers event, see the audience supervisor for “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” share her story of changing perceptions of veterans and how fighting for the military was sometimes easier than fighting for herself today.
“A lot of times, we become restricted to this list of generalizations because of our military service. ‘You like to take orders and crush things and show up 15 minutes early and carry anything that’s heavy — no matter what it is and what you’re wearing,’” Cabulong says. “But to me, what I believe, is that our military careers don’t define us by any means. But they empower us towards the future and what we’re yet to be.”
In this NationSwell exclusive, Cabulong discusses how civilians can better recognize the humanity in our nation’s soldiers.
What inspired you to serve your country?
To be honest, it was mainly because I didn’t know if I had what it would take to be a U.S. Marine. I came from a family with a military background, but there weren’t any Marines, any women who served, or any officers, and I became all three. The idea of going to college and succeeding was easy to me because I did well in school, but being a U.S. Marine meant that I would work towards being greater than myself. I’m a first generation [American], so this country is mine, but not my parents’. So there’s also a go-big-or-go-home attitude that sort of sticks with me.
What 3 words describe your experience in the service?
In three separate words: challenging, rewarding, inspiring. In three words all together: “Carried heavy things.”
What is one thing people should understand about the Marine Corps?
That we are human. We are men and women from different backgrounds that come in all shapes and sizes, and we are not perfect. We are capable of both mistakes and failures, but also achievements beyond anything we could have imagined. We’re not too different from others that have dedicated themselves to a powerful cause or mission that requires a lot out of you both physically and mentally.
Also that the ‘p’ is silent in Corps.
What is the quality you most admire in a comrade?
Humility, which can be rare when you’re surrounded by a bunch of type-A personalities. But being humble grants you a certain level of awareness and the ability to respect others that is incredibly valuable as a leader. Good hygiene also goes a long way with me, too.
Was there time to laugh when you were deployed overseas?
If there isn’t, then you’re doing something wrong. Deployment really evolves your sense of humor too. Maybe it makes it broader or more crude, but laughing really bonds you in those situations, and it becomes a necessary survival tactic.
Who are your heroes in real life?
‘Heroes’ is a funny concept to me. Especially when you eventually meet one and then they hire you to work on their late-night comedy show. After Jon Stewart [former host of “The Daily Show”], I would really have to say that it’s anyone — whether it be Marines, friends, or writers that have written something that I absolutely needed to read at the moment I read it — that has just made me feel like it’s okay to really be myself. I feel like smaller, more accessible heroes is the best way forward these days.
To you, what does it mean to be a veteran?
It’s a reminder that I once gave a significant portion of my life towards being something great and will be connected to the many others that have done the same thing. It’s a very small percentage of our population that does this. I don’t know if I’ll ever do something as great, and that scares me, but I’ll continue to work hard and keep serving how I can.
What generalizations about veterans have you encountered?
For the most part, people are very kind and helpful and generous, and I think that’s probably the best thing you can expect when it comes to being generalized. I think there are still some preconceived notions about the kind of people who serve, but I mean, it’s not like we make it easy on ourselves with all our different services, traditions, uniforms and rules. I suppose I just wish we could get to a point where when I told someone I was a U.S. Marine, I wouldn’t be automatically asked, “Really?!”
How can civilians get a better sense of the people behind the military uniform?
Watch fewer military movies. The depictions of the armed services still isn’t really where I’d like to see it. I was more inspired toward the military by Disney’s “Mulan” than by “G.I. Jane,” and I think there’s something to be said about that. So yes, just talk to us more. All of us. Not all women who join the military survived some sort tragic childhood or weren’t popular in school. We come from the same place everyone else does. Two people can serve alongside each other and one can be from a rich town and the other from a poor town, but they’re doing the same job and both are out to protect each others’ lives.
Who is your favorite comedian?
This is the hardest question of the whole thing. So I will just say that in this moment, right now, it’s Eddie Izzard because I was listening to him on my way in to work.
Who was the most inspirational person you encountered while serving?
Eric Flanagan. He’s a captain now and was my partner in Afghanistan. He went from being an infantry corporal to a lieutenant and Public Affairs Officer. For me, just being a Marine Public Affairs Officer and a woman, I went through a lot for this journey. Being able to share our perspectives and have someone on my side that understood my experience had a huge impact on my life and how I thought of myself. I still email him the occasional life crisis and inside joke. It helps my sanity.
How can people use humor to get through tough times?
If watching reality tv doesn’t work to make you feel better about yourself, then I would try finding comedians who write or do stand up about things that you can relate to. That’s what I’ve found to help get me through difficult times — finding someone else who has gone through something similar and made the same observations I have. We’re not alone in our struggles, and laughing at sad things is incredibly therapeutic. So is getting a dog.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Since I’ve moved to New York, life has shifted in a way that has given me the opportunity to speak about issues that are important to me as a woman and as a Marine and working in comedy. It’s a way for me to continue to serve and to sort through my own experiences. I’m continually surprised that people are willing to listen, so that feels like a pretty good achievement.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
MORE: 13 Questions with Marine-Turned-Poet Maurice Decaul

This Veteran Refuses To Leave His Unemployed and Debt-Ridden Comrades Behind

When Eli Williamson returned from two deployments to the Middle East, his hometown of Chicago felt at times like a foreign battleground, the memory of desert roads more familiar than Windy City central thoroughfares. As he relearned the city, Williamson noticed a strange similarity between veterans like himself and the young people growing up in tough parts of Chicago. Too many had witnessed violence, and they had little support to cope with the trauma.
Applying the timeworn principle of leaving no soldier, sailor, airman or marine behind, Williamson co-founded Leave No Veteran Behind (LNVB), a national nonprofit focused on securing education and employment for our warriors. Williamson formed the organization based on “just real stupid” and “crazy” idealism: “You know what?” he says. “I can make a difference.” Since work began in 2008, with a measly operating budget of $4,674 to help pay off student loans, LNVB has eliminated around $150,000 of school debt and provided 750 transitional jobs, Williamson says.
“Coming out of the military, every individual is going to have his or her challenges,” says Williamson, who served as a psychological operations specialist and an Arabic linguist in Iraq in 2004 and in Afghanistan in 2007. “We’ve seen veterans with substance abuse issues, homelessness issues.” Additionally, at least one in five veterans suffer from PTSD, and almost 50,000 are homeless and 573,000 are unemployed.
Williamson started the group with his childhood friend Roy Sartin. They first met in high school, when they joined choir and band together. “I think we’ve been arguing like old women every since,” Williamson says. Both joined the U.S. Army Reserves while at Iowa’s Luther College and were mobilized to active duty during their senior year after the Twin Towers fell. Williamson finished his education at the Special Warfare Training Center at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, while Sartin put his learning on hold.
Upon return, both struggled with crippling interest rates on their student loans. Sartin received a call from the loan company saying that he needed to make a $20,000 payment. “Although I had the funds, it was just enough to get myself back together. So, for me, the transition wasn’t as tough, but I was one of the lucky ones.” Williamson got a bill for $2,200 only 22 days before the balance was due. Desperate, he took to the streets playing music to cover the costs.
After talking with other vets, the two realized that many didn’t qualify for the military’s debt repayment programs. That’s when they started going out to financial sources for “retroactive scholarships” for our country’s defenders. And they sought employment opportunities for former military members to help cover the rest.
Jobs and debt relief for our nation’s warriors are the main focus of LNVB, but the group oversees several initiatives, including S.T.E.A.M. Corps, which pairs vets with science, technology, engineering, arts, and math experience with at-risk youth. More than 200 students have graduated from S.T.E.A.M., but Williamson, director of veteran affairs at the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, points to a more intangible benefit of his non-profit’s work: the ability for veterans “to articulate a larger vision of themselves … is our advocacy mission,” he says.
“Veterans can paint a vision for where our country needs to be, and the only reason we can do that is because you realize that you are part of something larger than yourself,” Williamson adds. “That’s a fundamental value that veterans can share, as they leave military, with the communities that they come back to.” For those who’ve just returned home from Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, in other words, service is just beginning.

All It Took Was One Judge and Two Veterans to Provide Another Chance to Countless Soldiers

In 1986, one in every five inmates in state prison was a former member of the military.
Today, many post-9/11 veterans are still running into trouble with the law. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects at least 167,500 veterans (that’s just the number diagnosed by VA doctors) who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan — and it could afflict as many as 620,000. The disorder has given soldiers their toughest mission yet: successfully reintegrating into civilian life. The nightmares and flashbacks, anxiety, hyper-vigilance and other unresolved mental health issues caused by PTSD often translate into drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, domestic violence and lawbreaking.
In a society that’s appears increasingly disconnected from the experience of war, there’s one civic institution that’s taking strides to accommodate veterans’ unique situation. Courtrooms across the country are now adopting veterans treatment courts — at least 180 established locations and many more are in development, according to the nonprofit Justice for Vets. It’s a model that tailors the criminal justice system’s response to the circumstances: Similar to drug and mental health treatment courts, judges are less inclined to mete out punishment to troubled vets, connecting them with help, particularly from the VA and local military members. If a former warrior successfully completes the program (which can include counseling, substance abuse treatment and job training), all the charges against him are dropped; if he fails to finish, the original jail sentence goes into effect.
“Many veterans will say, ‘I’m okay, I don’t need any help,’ but sometimes it takes another veteran to say, ‘You know, things are starting to spiral out of control,’” says Judge Robert Russell, who convened the first court in Buffalo in early 2008. “It could be traumatic brain injury. It could be PTSD. It could be any number of things that are left untreated. They’re not only debilitating, they’re what’s placing the person in the criminal court system and will continue to keep them in the criminal justice system.”
Russell says the “impetus of the court” began with a single case that came before him in 2006. A former Vietnam vet who’d appeared in his drug treatment court didn’t seem to be responding to the program. Group sessions didn’t work; neither did one-on-ones. “He wasn’t really engaged,” Russell recalls. “When he appeared in court, his posture was slumped. When I asked him what was going on with counseling, I didn’t get much of a response, just sort of like, ‘Huh?’” Russell pointed to two men in the room — Hank Pirowski, a former Marine, and Jack O’Connor, an Army vet — and asked them to talk to the downcast man out in the hallway.
Twenty minutes later, the three reentered. The defendant strutted to the front of the room and stretched to his full height, a tall 6’4”. He stood with his legs slightly apart and held his hands clasped behind his back — a military posture known as “parade rest.”
“He looked directly at me and said, ‘Judge, I’m going to try harder,’” Russell says. Afterwards, Russell met with Pirowski and O’Connor to find out what they said to the guy and how they got a response from him.
The two veterans had discussed their service, and after they’d established a common background, they told the man they cared about him and explained how important counseling would be for him to move forward. As simple as it sounds, the man needed to hear it from someone who’d struggled like he had, someone who could reassure him a future existed.
From that day forward, the trio collaborated on setting up a treatment court for veterans. Their goal? To “afford the best opportunities for the men and women who have served,” Russell says, setting aside one day each week to dedicate entirely to members of the military. The time was used to assemble a team of outside services, so referrals could begin immediately. If a vet hadn’t signed up for VA care, for example, a health official could immediately engage him that day, scheduling appointments and enrolling him for benefits right there in court.
An essential aspect of the treatment court is the volunteer veteran mentors, who function as a coach, sponsor and supporter, providing help with bus passes, rent, furniture or just talking through any crisis. “If they need something, Marines talk to Marines more than they do their own lawyer,” O’Connor says. Many are Vietnam vets who want soldiers just returning home from the Middle East to receive a different welcome than they did. “We never tell anyone about stuff we dealt with because no one liked us. People really hated our guts. Now a lot of Vietnam vets are in positions of authority. They’re in their 60s, they’re on boards of corporations, they own their own companies,” O’Connor adds.
As so many restorative justice programs have shown, rehabilitation like veteran courts reduces crime over the long haul by addressing the problems that initially led to criminal behavior. As O’Connor, who now coordinates the volunteer mentors, says, “You treat the illness, you stop the addiction.”
There’s stories like Gary Pettengill, a 23-year-old Buffalo resident arrested in a drug sweep. In 2006, while serving in the Army in Iraq, he injured his back and was forced to take a medical discharge. Nights were intolerable, alternating between sleepless pain and nightmares, so Pettengill began smoking marijuana to cope. Unemployed (in part because of his injury), he began selling weed to make ends meet and was eventually diagnosed with PTSD. Pettengill never did any jail time, and he credits the program with saving him from suicide, an option that had once looked inevitable.
Pettengill’s just one of the program’s 150 graduates in Buffalo. Another is the man whose appearance before Russell sparked the court’s conception. The man’s case manager at the local VA hospital said he had never seen the man smile before, but after the court was established, he became one of the cheeriest men at the facility.
O’Connor gives each of these men a special coin at graduation. It harkens back to “challenge coins,” small medallions that are unique to each unit of the military, only these have the scales of justice on one side and the phrase “Leave no veteran behind” on the other. He tells the grads to carry it with them, so if they ever run into trouble, they’ll remember how far they’ve come.
Data coming in from across the country backs up these stories. A three-year pilot in San Diego (home to multiple Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard facilities) found that recidivism dropped for those in the program, most of whom had been booked on DUIs or domestic violence charges. Of the 74 enrolled, only three reoffended — a rate of 4.1 percent, far below the 65 percent figure for state prisons. Even better, among the 27 who graduated the program, not a single person committed another crime. The county estimated the program’s savings at $3.985 million in jail and treatment costs.
“Once you’re seen the success rate, you can’t hide it,” O’Connor says. “Something’s working, and it’s working all over the country.”
That’s not to say there’s not criticisms of the concept. Although most are quick to thank veterans for their service, some wonder if the military is receiving special treatment that should be more widely available. After all, why do former service members receive a get-out-of-jail-free card while others are locked up? Russell says this is partly a matter of logistics. Veterans need specialized care, so scheduling their cases on the same day creates an easy one-stop shop for both client and service provider. The alternative sentencing is not a free pass, either. Former soldiers are expected to make regular court appearances and are subject to randomized drug testing.
Russell says he can’t believe how quickly the courts have taken off. “When we started it, we thought it was the right thing to do for the community in which we were serving,” he says. “But it was something that touched the heart and spirit of many around the country. They’ve embraced the concept. They’re affording veterans some of opportunities inside their justice system to help them get back on track in their own community.”
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How This Veteran Transitioned From Combat to Cocktails

Steve Schneider, a former United States Marine turned world champion bartender, holds a wooden mallet. It’s his signature tool, and he uses it not only to crush ice for cocktails, but also to serve as a symbol of strength.
“I wanted to help people, you know? I wanted to make a man of myself and make a difference,” he says, explaining how he volunteered for a deployment after Sept. 11, 2001.
“In the Marine Corps I excelled, physically, academically, mentally,” he continues, reflecting on his sense of invincibility after graduating top of his class in boot camp.
But Schneider, who later built his future at a bar, almost died after a night out on the town during training for this elite unit that was headed to Japan, then Afghanistan. “I got in an accident,” he says, as the picture behind him transitions from clean cut military man to a hospital patient in a coma with two purple eyes, three plates in his skull and 52 stitches that left a scar framing his face. “I got my ass kicked, to be honest.”
Feeling lost, and thinking about his friends who he was supposed to be leading overseas, he stumbled upon a Washington, D.C. bar with a “Help Wanted” sign posted. What started out as a way to make a few extra bucks evolved into so much more — leading him to enter — and win — several speed bartending competitions and develop confidence in his craft.
Now, Schneider is one of the principal bartenders at “Employee’s Only” in New York City. “And that’s when everything started to take off for me,” says Schneider, the central character of the 2013 film Hey Bartender. “It gave me a platform to be the best at what I do.”
Watch his talk and prepare to be inspired by a veteran who is a walking, talking, mallet-bearing example of turning adversity into opportunity.
 

These 10 Documentaries Will Change How You See America

Documentary films are known for sparking social change. (Case in point: Who wants to eat at McDonalds after seeing Super Size Me or Food, Inc.? What parent suggests visiting SeaWorld after seeing Blackfish?) Though 2014’s nonfiction films weren’t massive box office hits, they pointed out injustice and lifted our eyes to the doers making a difference. Here are the 10 must-see documentaries that inspired us to action.

10. The Great Invisible

BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 still darkens the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico in the form of altered ecosystems and ruined lives. Named best documentary at the SXSW Film Festival, Margaret Brown’s documentary dives deep beyond the news coverage you may remember into a tale of corporate greed and lasting environmental damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDw1budbZpQ

9. If You Build It

Two designers travel to the poorest county in rural North Carolina to teach a year-long class, culminating in building a structure for the community. In this heartwarming story, 10 students learn much more than construction skills.
http://vimeo.com/79902240

8. The Kill Team

An infantry soldier struggles with his wartime experience after alerting the military his Army platoon had killed civilians in Afghanistan. On the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ long list for best documentary, Dan Krauss’s challenging film shows how morality dissolves in the fog of war and terror of battle.

7. Starfish Throwers

Three people — a renowned cook, a preteen girl and a retired teacher — inspire an international movement to end hunger. Jesse Roesler’s film includes the story of Allan Law, the man who handed out 520,000 sandwiches during the course of a year in Minneapolis, which we featured on NationSwell.

6. Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story

A former Navy SEAL (formerly named Christopher, now Kristin) says that changing genders, not military service, was the biggest battle of her life. In retrospect, her SEAL experience takes on new importance as she comes to understand the true value of the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

5. The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

An online pioneer who developed Creative Commons with the academic and political activist Lawrence Lessig at age 15 and co-founded Reddit at 19, Swartz crusaded for a free and open internet. Another potential Oscar candidate, the film poignantly recounts how Swartz ended his own life at age 26 after aggressive prosecutors initiated a federal case against him.

4. True Son

A 22-year-old black man recently graduated from Stanford returns to his bankrupt hometown of Stockton, Calif., to run for city council. Michael Tubbs convinces his neighbors (and the movie’s audiences) you can have “a father in jail and a mother who had you as a teenager, and still have a seat at the table.”

3. The Hand That Feeds

After years of abuse from their bosses, a group of undocumented immigrants working for a New York City bakery unionize for fair wages and better working conditions. Led by a demure sandwich maker, the employees partner with young activists to fight their case against management and the food chain’s well-connected investors.

2. Rich Hill

Three boys confront impoverishment, learning disabilities and dysfunctional families in this human portrait of growing up in small-town America. The backdrop to the teenagers’ lives is their Missouri hometown of 1,396 residents, where one in five lives in poverty and where the fireworks still glow every Fourth of July.
 

1. The Overnighters

Our top film and a favorite for an Academy Award nomination details how an oil boom draws a city-sized influx of workers to a small town in North Dakota, where they scrape by on day labor and live in their cars. With the heft, detail and narrative twists of a Steinbeck novel, Jesse Moss profiles the Lutheran pastor Jay Reinke, who welcomes these desperate men into a shelter called “The Overnighters,” to his congregation’s dismay.
 

Are there any documentaries that should have made the cut? Let us know in the comments below.

After America Was Attacked, These Veterans Were Inspired to Protect and Serve

At a Google Tech Talk yesterday, held at the company’s New York City offices, a panel of veterans recalled where they were on Sept. 11, 2001 — a date that motivated so many service members to join the Armed Forces.
In attendance was Joe Quinn, now the Northeast Director for Team Red, White & Blue, whose brother was one of the 658 employees at Cantor Fitzgerald who died when Flight 11 hit One World Trade Center. Former Green Beret Mark Nutsch told the story how he had to explain to his boys and his wife (seven months into her pregnancy) that he would soon have to deploy to get the bad guys. And Master Sergeant Eric Stebner spoke about earning the Silver Star for braving enemy fire to carry the bodies of fellow U.S. Army Rangers — including that of his best friend — in the battle of Takur Ghar in Afghanistan.
Carrie Laureno, founder of the Google Veterans Network, moderated the panel and emphasized the need to acknowledge these “achievements and contributions on behalf of all of us who have not served.”
Laureno led her team at Google Creative Lab to produce “The Call to Serve,” a temporary installation at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City to recognize the stories of Quinn, Nutsch and Stebner, among others. Reacting to the museum lacking any recognition of military accomplishments in the permanent exhibit, Laureno developed this tribute to the untold stories of military members who have served since 9/11.
Touch screens in the exhibit draw you into these stories using Google Tour Builder technology that integrates Google Earth imagery with personal photos and anecdotes provided by nine veterans.
While the exhibit will only be on view this week, as part of the 9/11 Museum’s “Salute to Service,” the tribute will remain online indefinitely.
Browse through the stories of the responders whose stories and service deserve recognition and thanks, then spread the word with the #ThankAVet hashtag.

A Small Island That Makes a Big Difference for America’s Veterans

Having just returned from leave, Luis Puertas was in the lead of a four-vehicle patrol unit in Iraq on Sept. 20, 2006, when an IED, hidden at the base of a street lamp, suddenly exploded. As a result of the blast, Puertas lost both of his legs and several members of the 4th Infantry Division were injured. Dozens of surgeries and years of rehabilitation put Puertas’ life on hold, and relaxation was the farthest thing from his mind.
But this summer, Puertas received a much-deserved vacation, thanks to Holidays for Heroes.
Founded in 2013 by summer resident Tom McCann, Holidays for Heroes brings Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families to Nantucket, Mass., for all-inclusive retreats. Banners at the nonprofit’s events say “Honoring Their Sacrifice,” which is exactly what the group does. With two to three retreats, dubbed “holidays,” per summer, they organize everything from beach barbecues and dinners to outings and entertainment for wounded warriors. Often, it is just unstructured rest and relaxation, though, which the veterans want most — so the organization’s primary task is simply to enable that by hosting them at no cost on the island. During Fourth of July weekend, the nonprofit hosted two heroes — Puertas, who is from Tampa, Fla., and Joel Dulashanti of Portland, Ore.
Scores of volunteers work tirelessly to make the holiday a perfect experience for visiting veterans like Dulashanti and Puertas. As year-round Nantucketer Donna Hamel says, “It might be a little overwhelming for some of the veterans, especially if they have disabilities.” And it can also be hard for the organizers — feeding, housing, entertaining and transporting the vets takes tremendous effort.
But that’s never been a problem.
“[Holidays for Heroes] gives people an opportunity to do something for a different cause than they might usually,” says Hamel.  And it’s exactly that involvement that has driven a lot of the group’s success. As McCann says, “We’ve been very fortunate that every single club, organization, business and individual on this special island has gotten behind the Holidays for Heroes mission.” From clothing boutiques to inns to restaurants, support has poured in. For instance, the Independence Day Firecracker 5K has existed for years, but it adopted Holidays for Heroes as a benefitting charity.
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Even with such great community support, however, the veterans’ holidays would not be possible without McCann and the Holidays for Heroes leadership. For both McCann and the organization’s executive director, Magdalena Padzik, helping our servicemen and women is more than just a way to give back, it’s personal — their individual experiences have informed a deeper love for and commitment to our veterans.
On Memorial Day 2011, McCann was on Nantucket with his family. They fished, went to the beach and rounded out the day with a barbecue. That evening, while watching the celebrations from Washington, D.C., on television with his wife, Mary-Jo, McCann saw Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise perform a veterans’ tribute. It was at that moment McCann realized that the great day and the beautiful place — Nantucket — that he was blessed to experience should be shared with those who sacrificed for America.
Drawn by the idea of helping our veterans, McCann knew that doing so would require starting a nonprofit. To help him get Holidays for Heroes off the ground, he enlisted the help of his longtime friend Cheryl Bartlett, a fellow islander. Currently serving as the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bartlett leads a life of service. When McCann pitched the idea to Bartlett, she loved it, and has been his co-chair ever since.
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Padzik, another key leader, joined the group after meeting McCann at Holiday for Heroes’ first event. She and her family lived in Soviet-era Poland, and her father was part of the Solidarity Movement, a non-communist trade union that the U.S.S.R. tried to destroy through martial law. In order to stay safe, the Padziks moved to America when Magdalena was 4 years old. For more than a decade, she’s lived on Nantucket.
“Freedom is not something we had [growing up], which is really why this is so important to me,” says Padzik, whose appreciation for those who defend her liberty runs deep.
While Padzik’s days are already full — she’s a mother and works as the manager of a local bank —  she, like McCann, can’t ignore the plight of veterans.
McCann says that “once you walk into Walter Reed [Medical Center],” where Holidays for Heroes finds most of its veterans (including Jason Redman, an Iraq vet and founder of the nonprofit Wounded Wear) to invite for a weekend on Nantucket, “and meet all these amazing young men and women… it just opens your eyes forever. The cause is big and the need is huge.”
Especially in light of the recent Veterans Affairs hospital scandal, the void in assistance for America’s armed forces is something that is not lost on Holidays for Heroes. While the centerpiece of the organization’s work is its world-class Nantucket getaways, it’s also beginning to reach out to veterans across the country to help them start businesses and fund their children’s education.
While similar programs do exist (such as Landing Zone Grace Veterans Retreat), Holidays for Heroes is unique because of the people of Nantucket that embrace both the organization and the veterans that it hosts. On the island with his fiancé, Amber, and daughter, Emilia, Puertas explains that the weekend arranged for him by the organization was “a lot more than just a vacation…it [was] much deeper than that.”
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That kind of experience, though, is sadly not the norm for America’s veterans. But whether it’s the countless hours put in by McCann, Bartlett, Padzik and other volunteers, or simply someone on vacation running with and cheering on heroes and civilians alike in the 5K, Holidays for Heroes and the whole island community shows everyone a unique model of service for those who’ve served.
As Puertas says of McCann, “There’s a lot of things in life we want but can’t have, but he takes that pressure away and treats you like you’re part of his family… we could hang out together and not feel so alone.”
 
 

This Army Dad’s Mission? To Attend His Daughter’s Graduation

Kids who have a parent serving in the military must grow up knowing that their mom or dad faces the very difficult challenge of balancing their responsibilities in the Armed Forces with their family life.
That was the bittersweet reality facing Ruby Robinson as she celebrated receiving her degree from Columbia University’s engineering program. Ruby’s father, U.S. Army Reserve Captain Keith Robinson, had been stationed in northern Afghanistan for the last six months, and she understood that he would not be able to make it to her commencement ceremony.
However, in an amazing stroke of luck, the Captain was given approval to leave his unit. To make it to the ceremony in New York City, he embarked on a journey that lasted more than 14 hours — leaving Kuwait and making stops in Washington, D.C., and Denver along the way. Miraculously, he made it just in time for the ceremony.
With a bouquet of flowers in hand, the proud father greeted and gave a warm embrace to the new Ivy League grad. Tears of joy immediately flow from Ruby’s eyes and the crowd goes wild with applause and cheers.
“Congratulations, young lady,” he tells her in the clip. “I’m so proud of you.”

As Today.com reports, the army captain will remain in the U.S. for two weeks before returning to Afghanistan, where he will remain until the fall. As for his daughter, Ruby will be moving to California in the summer to start a job at Amazon.
Despite being apart, it sounds like they’re both fulfilling the duties that they trained for.
MORE: You Won’t Believe What This Veteran Received Upon His Homecoming