Standing for Country, Standing for Self

I didn’t grow up with military service in mind. Honestly, I joined the Air Force because I wanted to be an astronaut. In sixth grade, I went to a space camp and asked, simply, “How do I do this?”
From then on, I became obsessed with the Air Force. I was going to join the U.S. Air Force Academy, and nothing was going to change my mind. I even carried around the Academy’s college handbook in my backpack throughout high school.
I had such high aspirations for being in the military; I thought I’d be joining one huge family. But early on, I realized that wasn’t going to be the case. If the military was a family, it was one that wasn’t accepting of me. And that can make a person feel trapped and alone.
Before even enlisting in 2005, the fear of being outed was on my mind. That was because at the time, you couldn’t be gay and also serve in the military. Back when social media consisted of AOL chat rooms, people would mock me when I told them I wanted to join the Air Force Academy.
“‘Oh, you’re trying to go into the Air Force Academy, and you’re a fag?’” was something I heard often.
So I kept it in. After high school I attended Valley Forge Military Academy, a military prep school and junior college in Pennsylvania, and I made sure to stay tight-lipped about my sexuality. It wasn’t long before I saw first-hand what happened to people like me who didn’t keep quiet.
One of the cadets had been talking to other gay men online. Eventually word got out, and other cadets began blackmailing and harassing him. He was terrified, and it was my first experience of seeing what could happen to me under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which was still in effect. The law allowed a gay man or woman to serve in the military — so long as they stayed closeted and no one knew. If they were outed, they could be kicked out.
By the time I realized my dream and enrolled at the Air Force Academy a year later, a deep loneliness had set in. At some point, you realize that you are gay and that you need to seek out your own happiness and find other people like you. So that’s what I started to do.
What began as a way to simply connect and make friends with other gay cadets on Craigslist — the Academy has a unique zip code that makes it easy to find each other — turned into a nightmare. One professor, who was and still is very vocal about his ties to an anti-gay Christian organization, found out and began harassing me.
When I graduated in 2009, I was being blackmailed because of my sexual orientation. This continued even after I moved down to Alabama to start my technical training. Eventually, I had a breakdown. I couldn’t handle the stress, and I came out to my straight friends serving alongside me. They were all so supportive and understanding. The next day, they voted me their flight commander.  
To these guys, being gay and in the military was not a big deal. And that, for me, was a big deal — that here’s all these straight guys whom I just came out to, who learned about my situation, and they not only supported me, they also saw me as a leader.
That kind of empowered me to say to myself, “Wow, maybe I can change some things.”
So I did.

Josh Seefried, center, and members of OutServe-SLDN commemorate LGBT Pride Month at the New York Stock Exchange in 2013.

In 2010, just before DADT was repealed, I started an organization called OutServe. Though its advocacy has grown in scope in the years since, OutServe’s original purpose was to build an underground network for gay service members. I advocated under a pseudonym — JD Smith — and worked on telling stories to national news networks while appearing in shadow to preserve my identity.
But more than the activism, OutServe-SLDN, as it’s now known, was starting to connect people at bases. For the first time ever, service members deployed to Iraq could find another gay person and connect with them over a cup of coffee. Or if someone from Ohio was redeployed to a base in Alabama, it would be easier for them to find other gay people.
That social network is the most important thing that OutServe-SLDN has ever created, and it is my proudest accomplishment because I feel it saved lives. Seeing it succeed, I finally felt like I was creating that bit of family that was missing from the military for me and others like me.
OutServe-SLDN has grown tremendously since I left the service in January 2017. And even though DADT has been repealed, it’s still not safe to be gay in the military.
Though I never faced direct and explicit homophobia while on base, after the 2016 presidential election someone said to my face, for the first time, “Maybe this time fags won’t be allowed to serve.”
And now, with the threat of a transgender ban on the table, we need advocates more than ever.
It’s like what Harvey Milk said, which is at the end of the battle, you have to take a risk. You have to be visible. And the moment LGBTQ people in the military are not visible anymore is the moment that other young gay kids don’t think that they can serve. So yes, it is going to be risky. And it is going to be hurtful, but we need gay service members to stay the course and stay visible — as much as possible.

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As told to staff writer Joseph Darius Jaafari. This essay has been edited for style and clarity. Read more stories of service here.
Homepage photo by Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images.

In Order to Revitalize America, Our Concept of Leadership Needs to Change

The son of an Air Force veteran and a history teacher, Jeff Eggers attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., with his heart set on learning to fly jets off of aircraft carriers. Once he learned about the SEAL program, however, his future headed in a different direction because, “I wanted to get in the business of leadership,” Eggers explains. After a “mostly straightforward SEAL career,” Eggers transitioned from operations to strategic policy, most recently serving as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
These days, Eggers has more work-life balance and the flexibility to invest in his family (which includes two small children) that his previous military service and government work largely prevented. Serving as a senior fellow at New America, his focus on leadership remains, researching how to revitalize American prosperity by changing how the business community thinks about workplace independence and how public policy must take into account behavioral science in order to be effective. NationSwell sat down with Eggers at the Washington, D.C., offices of New America to discuss the need to create a “self-driven, self-directed, more autonomous workforce.”
What is the best advice you’ve ever been given on leadership?
Someone once said to me, “don’t take yourself too seriously.”  We’re all the same species, and one of the greatest mistakes that occurs when people get promoted to increasing levels of seniority is that they start taking themselves too seriously. I think leaders can ground themselves in a sense of humility, empathy, awareness and a respect for others. Doing so is one of the cornerstones of effective leadership. It’s not about you; it’s about the team.

Jeff Eggers in the Oval Office with President Obama, Vice President Biden and National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

What’s on your nightstand?
It’s David Rothkopf’s “National Insecurity,” which is professional reading. I’m writing a longer piece on how our culture of fear is undercutting our national decision-making and that’s one of the books I keep for that research. Unfortunately, my nightstand is not well equipped with enjoyable, light reads.
What is your biggest need right now?
My greatest need was to rebalance work, life and family, which I did. That box is largely checked, and that was a big deal. One of my big needs right now is to create a network of experts and likeminded practitioners around this idea of behavioral policy and to develop a framework for how you could, with some scale, start to influence at a strategic level how you think about public policy, how we train people to do public policy. Bringing together this kind of core network will become the people who shape and build this program with me.

What do you wish someone had told you when you started this job?
Too many people said it was going to be easy and not to overthink it. I think that I wish more people would’ve said the opposite — that it was going to be very difficult, steady yourself; it’s going to be harder than you think. Because for me personally, my desire was to test this hypothesis: To do the work-life balance and put family first you need to accept risk and you need to leap and hope that the net will appear. I came to advocate for that in such a way that I had to promote it by doing it. I had to live it. I did and that coupled with this mantra of “don’t overthink it; it’ll be easier than you think” — whoa! The leap has been a doozy at times, and some cautionary note of, “Absolutely, take the leap, but do a lot of thinking about all the various aspects of it,” [would’ve been nice.]
What inspires you?
Mostly, I’m always inspired by people that I respect and admire. My parents have been the longest, consistent source of inspiration. They put a lot of their energies in to their family — invested in their family, made sacrifices for their family. But also, they significantly advanced from one generation to another in life for more opportunities and that’s pretty inspiring, especially at a time when so few people have faith in the American Dream.
Today, I’m inspired by people who have a lot of moral conviction and intellectual courage to speak up against the mainstream conventional wisdom, especially when the mainstream conventional wisdom needs to be disrupted. That takes a significant amount of courage.
How do you inspire others?
By making people believe there is greatness in themselves. No one needs to look to anyone else for greatness or inspiration. There’s a tremendous amount of potential for greatness is each person. Too often we look to people that we ascribe greatness as having some sort of inherent advantage that made them great and that’s not the case. I would like everyone to understand that they are themselves a superhero, a genius. There’s no reason why everyone can’t tap into that. If everyone taps into a little bit of that, that small amount of incremental change is going to be extraordinary.
What is your proudest accomplishment?
It hasn’t happened yet. My proudest accomplishment will be raising my kids [ages 3 and 6]. That’s going to be my life’s work.
It’s more gratifying to see pride in accomplishments made by people that work for me. You don’t get any credit for them, but in my case, they’re more important [than what I’ve accomplished].
Eggers paragliding in the Canadian Rockies in 2009.

What should people know about you that they don’t?
I’m a pretty avid paraglider pilot. It’s the remnants of a formerly active and robust recreational lifestyle that had to be whittled down and made manageable with a family. The only real thing that I couldn’t ever let go of is my passion for paragliding. I had a bit of a scare back in September [2015] and kind of grounded myself and I’m now going through the soul-searching process of whether I can be both a responsible dad and an active paraglider pilot. That’s kind of a big deal. [Paragliding] is kind of scratching that aviation itch that I’ve had ever since I was a tiny kid and it’s how I’ve become a pilot. So it’s very, very fundamental and hard to let go of.
To learn more about the NationSwell Council, click here.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
MORE: How This Veteran Went from the Open Sea to Open Data

Everyone Should Stay Warm During the Winter — Especially America’s Heroes

Excluding Veterans Day and Memorial Day, it can be easy to forget the sacrifices that America’s former military personnel made on our country’s behalf. This winter, a national fuel retailer is stepping up to do something more for veterans, providing savings on an essential utility to help them stay warm.
Suburban Propane, a public company with headquarters in New Jersey and 700 locations in 41 states, is offering a special on the next delivery of 100 gallons or more of gas to households where a veteran or active-duty service member lives. For new customers with military ties, Suburban Propane will take $10 off the bill of their first delivery of 100 gallons or more and comp all charges for the change-out, safety check and the tank’s first year of rent. Existing customers have the opportunity to take advantage of the savings as well; they can receive $10 off the next delivery of 100 gallons or more, and by referring another veteran, they can earn an additional 35 gallons of fuel added to their next order.
Across the country, at least 49,900 veterans sleep on the streets on any given night. The shock of combat can make holding down a job, keeping up with bills and being responsible for other aspects of day-to-day civilian life difficult. Suburban Propane decided to lessen the financial burden on veterans after senior management realized how many of their colleagues had military ties, says Mark Wienberg, the company’s chief development officer.
Of Suburban Propane’s 3,600 employees, “many have family members who are veterans or are veterans themselves. Many have sons or daughters, nieces or nephews who are currently deployed. The head of human resources here is a veteran of the Marines. One guy that managed a local service center and is now overseeing our fleet and tank assets, he’s a military vet,” Wienberg says. The savings offer is “our way of giving back to those who have given for us,” he says.
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And it’s a way to reach veterans as the company ramps up recruiting efforts, offering military personnel employment opportunities. “Many, in their duty to the nation, have performed services that are similar to what we do here, driving major trucks and vehicles,” Wienberg explains. “Someone who comes back from duty could be a service technician, or an officer might run a service center.” The company is currently working with lawmakers on legislation at the state level that would streamline the licensing process for veterans who drove vehicles of a similar class overseas. “We’ll do whatever we can to assist them,” Wienberg stresses.
James Marentette, who was stationed on a Navy aircraft carrier in the 1950s, and his wife Cindy, recently signed up for the deal. The couple, who have a grandson serving in the Air Force, met in church after losing their spouses to cancer and now live together in Crossville, Tenn. Frustrated by their previous gas provider’s poor customer service, they switched to Suburban Propane two years ago at their daughter’s suggestion. The special savings for veterans has helped their pocketbooks, as they rely on fixed income from Social Security and a small pension.
“There is nothing more rewarding than serving your country. Not everyone has that privilege — and I considered it a privilege to do that. To be recognized by a company like Suburban, even in a small way, just means so much to me and so much to all of our friends too,” says Jim. “You get a lot of discounts in restaurants and things like that, but I never heard of a company that supplies utilities to homes helping vets.”
“We think it’s wonderful,” Cindy chimes in, “and we’re so thankful. It makes us feel like people really care.”
The offer is good for one delivery taken by March 31, 2016.