Tag: My Story of Service

A Hurricane Demolished My City. My Military Experience Is Helping Me Rebuild It

Posted on by robbie

When I took the job as city manager for Panama City, Florida — the place I’ve called home since 1988 — I never expected to be thrown back into Baghdad.
You see, this past year, I retired after 39 years with the Army, leaving as a two-star general. During my decades of service, I’ve seen what cities look like after they’ve been decimated. As a civil affairs officer in the Army Reserves, I was part of humanitarian efforts in Central America and the Caribbean. I also worked with civilians displaced by war in Baghdad and helped rebuild their city as commanding general of the 108th Training Command.
And I can tell you that after Hurricane Michael ravaged my city this year, it didn’t look all that different from Baghdad.
I’ve trained for exactly this kind of destruction. My experience in the military and opportunities to command have enabled me to not only help the citizens of Panama City recover, but also make our city better and stronger. I want to give back to my community, because my community has given me so much.
I’m not originally from Panama City. I spent my youth moving around — as an Army brat does — and I went to tons of different high schools; a new school for practically every year. But as a Boy Scout, service to my country and to my fellow citizens always stayed consistent.
My family also played a role. I had strong ties to the military growing up, with my father serving in Vietnam and my grandfather serving in World War II. And even though I was raised in the Vietnam era of the late 1960s and early ’70s, when returning soldiers were shunned and spat on, I still felt a duty to serve my country.

Panama City veteran 2
Before retiring as a two-star general, McQueen’s deployments included Operation Joint Endeavor in Bosnia, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq.

I eventually landed in the ROTC at Auburn University in Alabama and then the Army. That’s when everything changed for me. I was sent to Ansbach, Germany, during what I think was a very dark period for our military. This was around 1982, and I was seeing the effects of Vietnam on our soldiers in real time.
I was a young lieutenant then, and I remember taking soldiers to the hospital for in-patient alcohol and drug treatment. These men, who had served in Vietnam, were just emotionally crushed. I wouldn’t say we were a valueless army, but an army that had no compass. Things started to turn around, when a new division commander came in. He brought in a team of unbelievable leaders, and I saw what the power of leadership can do. When you uplift people and give them what they need, they start to raise their head a bit more.
Fast-forward some three decades later, when I was just a few months from retirement with the Army and I accepted the job of city manager. I’ve lived in Panama City for so many years, and as I was going through my military career, the city took care of me. It was my time to take care of the citizens here. Little did I know that Hurricane Michael, one of the worst hurricanes to slam the Florida Panhandle in decades, was going to hit just two weeks later.
After Michael made landfall, the mayor likened the area to Baghdad. He wasn’t wrong — it does look like Baghdad, except with trees. There was massive destruction. The city’s infrastructure was almost entirely collapsed, and an estimated 90 percent of homes were damaged or destroyed — like a war zone, but with nature as the adversary. The people here have the same needs as those in war-torn countries.
So I thought back to my time in service — my deployment to Bosnia, short time in Afghanistan and year in Iraq, where I helped rebuild infrastructure and organized relief efforts. A big benefit from my time in the Army is that I’ve been able to translate those skills to my civilian career. I approached this new crisis facing my city in a similar way. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, I worked to help ensure everyone’s safety and security. Then I focused on coordinating the efforts to provide food, water and shelter. Now I’m looking at the longer term, asking myself things like, How do I reinvigorate and rev up the economic engine of this community?  
I met with one of Verizon’s top executives when she came down to visit. Verizon has about 80 percent of the market share here, and when their towers got shredded it crippled recovery efforts. After explaining the needs of my city, Verizon decided to reinvest $25 million in the community. Initially, the company was planning on creating 5G networks in four cities. Now there are five, with Panama City joining Los Angeles, Houston, Indianapolis and Sacramento.
We in Panama City are resilient. I know, because I’m applying my military training and experience to this new problem set — and let me tell you we have a wicked set of problems currently — but Panama City can, and will, come back.

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As told to NationSwell staff writer Joseph Darius Jaafari. This essay has been edited for clarity and style. Read more stories of service here.

I Never Fought for My Country, But I Still Found a Way to Serve

Posted on by robbie

I never served in the military. And yet I find myself helping those who did serve, every day.
That’s not by coincidence.
I grew up in a military family where pride, honor and service were all part of our ethos. Our license plate says “Oorah”; my first stuffed animal was a bulldog. Military is very much part of who we are. My father was a Vietnam veteran, and though he didn’t speak much about those days, you could tell he thought back on that time with incredible fondness. I wanted something like that. To be part of something bigger than myself.
Whenever any one of us left the house, my mother always used to remind us, “Remember who you are.” It was a constant reminder that we were representing the values and strength that military families must have.
So serving was something I was expected to do, and it’s something I wanted for myself. Which is why when it came to going to college, I’m sure it was odd for my father — a 26-year veteran — to hear that I would be not attending a military academy or even registering to be in any branch of the military.  
Instead I had an incredible opportunity to play soccer at school, which tore at my heart. Would I be letting down my family? Is this not the opposite of how I was raised?
My father calmed me down and told me something that I would never forget, and that I carry to this day. He said, “Meghan, go to school and get a great education. You’ll find your way to service. Go be the best you can be.”

Meghan Service 2
Dog Tag fellows and staff during a surprise visit from President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden.

And I did. I eventually found my way into finance at Lehman Brothers in 2005 and moved my way up the corporate ladder. But a few years and thousands of layoffs later, I stopped and had to ask myself what I was doing — was this really the service I was meant to do?
Service is meant to be selfless. My father talked about his time in service not with pride for himself, but with pride for his peers. But at some point in everyone’s time of service, there’s a realization that whatever help you’re giving often ends up bettering your life too. And I just wasn’t feeling that with where I was.
It was around that time when I was approached by a friend who told me about a one-armed Jesuit priest named Father Rick Curry who wanted to start a nonprofit for veterans in Washington, D.C. I just had to meet him.
I sat down with Father Curry for a whole weekend, and he sold me on this vision he had, built around men and women veterans who — unlike the people in the movies, broken and desperate — have a variety of different voices and talents, despite their physical or mental ailments acquired while serving.
And with that, he and his co-founder created Dog Tag Bakery, a space that utilizes veterans as employees, but also offers classes and the support to start an entrepreneurial venture of their own. I joined as their first employee in 2012.
I would never say I’m at the same level of my father, sister or mom. But I’ve helped establish a program that has a culture of acceptance and offers wraparound services to vets. It’s not about running a bakery — it’s about running the best bakery.
And this isn’t just about doing something good for people. This is about doing good business. We’re seeing an economic impact. Change doesn’t always happen on a national level; it happens on a small level in our communities every day. I think that there’s no greater calling than that.

As told to NationSwell staff writer Joseph Darius Jaafari. This essay has been edited for clarity and style. Read more stories of service here.

A Recruiter’s Mission: Supporting Vets After They Serve

Posted on by robbie

After World War II, 20 percent of veterans created businesses after they left the service. Now, only four percent of veterans do so.
And that’s a shame, especially when so many qualified veterans have so much more to offer, especially as entrepreneurs.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
I spent over a decade as a recruiter for the Army, trying to help young men and women sign up for military service and realize their full potential. It was exactly what my recruiter did for me when I was a young man growing up in Flint, Michigan. But now that I’m out of the Army, I’ve made it my mission to help veterans understand their potential as entrepreneurs.
I understood at a young age the fear of leaving the comforts of my life to start something new. It’s a feeling that almost every person I grew up with in my hometown experienced. When I was young, you could name five or six auto plants in Flint. That’s where everyone worked; that’s where we were going to work. So when all the plants closed down — jobs moved overseas and across borders — there wasn’t much for us in the way of work. Where would we go? What would we do?
Because my town was crumbling, I started seeing lots of individuals joining the military. It’s an easy way out, I’ll admit. And I won’t lie in saying it’s not, for many, a decision based purely on finances. So when I was approached at the mall by an Army recruiter, I knew what was happening.
Most everyone who joins the military has contact with a recruiter at some point. Their job is to convince you to join. That’s it.
But the recruiter I met that day wasn’t like others. He told me what I could do with my life, and told me about my opportunities. It’s easy to pinpoint when you’re being sold something in a heavy-handed manner, like with a timeshare. He didn’t do that. He was honest, forthcoming and just laid out the facts.  
I kept in contact with him, and when I was old enough to join the Army, I did exactly that.

Army entrepreneur 3
After meeting an honest, forthcoming recruiter at a young age, Curtez Riggs (center) was inspired to join the Army.

Sure, my decision to join was driven by economic reasons, but it was also a chance to get out and provide myself with a fresh opportunity.
I didn’t recognize at the time that the military would change my life so much. The Army gave me insight into what would become my life’s mission: helping my fellow man. And I was finally in a position to help others. And though I didn’t have money to, say, donate to causes, I did have my own story of growing up in Flint and not knowing what to do after high school.
After five years in the Army, I was selected to become a recruiter. From then on, I could use my own story to help others who were just like me, back when I was a lost 15-year-old.
I went back home to Flint, the place I tried to escape. I went back to my high school, the place where people saw me as a knucklehead, and I met my old teachers — the ones who thought I wouldn’t amount to much — and I showed them how the Army had changed my life.
I saw myself in all those students there, and I was plain, simple and honest with them — just like my recruiter was with me.
But I didn’t stop at Flint. I also went to Washington D.C., Baltimore, San Antonio and Houston. I met with the poorest of the poor in the grimiest of neighborhoods, where drugs and violence were everywhere. I went to the western outskirts of Detroit, where there are almost no opportunities for kids, with the intent of helping people make a positive change in their environment. And they respected me for it.
At the same time, I had a litany of side hustles. I was a digital consultant, website creator and blogger. Wherever I found a way to make extra money, I did it. I had established enough of a side business where I wasn’t afraid of what would happen to me when I retired.
But before I retired, I began to realize that it wasn’t just young people who needed my help in recognizing their potential. My fellow soldiers were leaving the service at 30, 40 years of age, and had no clue what they wanted to do after they left.
Army entrepreneur 2
Curtez Riggs founded the Military Influencer Conference to bring together veterans, spouses and business leaders for opportunities to build their own businesses post-service.

Just like those young men and women who were fearful about what to do after high school, there were people I was serving with who had the same anxiety about what they could do after a lifetime in service.
I saw another opportunity to help. So I started the Military Influencer Conference, which brings together veterans, spouses and business leaders for opportunities to build their own businesses post-service.
My process hasn’t changed much. But instead of talking to 17-year-old kids about their opportunities, I’m now meeting with middle-aged men and women and helping them understand their potential.
I derive satisfaction from knowing that I might be helping people have a second chance in a new career, and to access opportunities they never knew they had.
Hopefully this is just the beginning. And, eventually, we can bring more veterans into building businesses. Just like me, they are not done serving yet.

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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.

Make Shoes, Not War

Posted on by robbie

A mission is never finished till it’s actually complete. Sounds obvious, of course, but it’s something I didn’t recognize until I left Afghanistan — after my mission was technically “done.”
Growing up, all I ever wanted was to have a mission. It was something that was I born and bred to do. In my family, military service goes back four generations to my great-grandfather, who served in WWI.
But, to be honest, I mostly just wanted to be an Airborne Ranger. Those are the meanest dudes on the planet (it also helped that they jump out of planes and blow shit up). All the coolest guys in the movies were Rangers, and that’s exactly who I wanted to be.
Or, at least, that’s what I used to think.
I graduated from West Point in June 2001, just a few months before the 9/11 terror attacks. It became evident that I was going to be sent overseas. And getting there was grueling. To become an Airborne Ranger, you have to put yourself through hell. By the end of training you’ve lost 40 pounds, you look like a 12-year-old boy, and you’re struggling as the new guy trying to fit in.
On one of my first missions, in 2003, I was sent to the Hindu Kush — a mountain range in northeast Afghanistan that is, quite literally, a killer. Centuries ago, slaves were taken over the mountains, and whoever survived the journey was thought to be a good slave.
We travelled at night through frigid temperatures, with two feet of snow on the ground. By all means, we were physically prepared for this part of the battle; trudging through the world’s worst environments is exactly what we train for. But what I wasn’t prepared for was coming face-to-face with some of the world’s worst poverty. Children with no shoes would approach us, begging for water — and that was the nicest part of the trip. Days went on, and the higher in elevation we climbed, the more dire the conditions for the people who lived there.
At first, when you’re laser-focused on hunting down the bad guys, it’s easy to ignore the poverty around you. But over time, seeing firsthand that kind of extreme hardship and suffering changes you.
When I was sent to Iraq in 2005, I started to think that the overall mission was pointless. I wondered if this war — the War on Terror — would become my generation’s Vietnam. At West Point, my graduating class had a motto: “Till Duty Is Done.” But by this time, it was clear to me that we would never be done with this place. Instead of making life better for people and helping to alleviate their poverty, we were only making it worse.
I left the Army soon after, in 2006, and started working for Remote Medical International (RMI), an organization that provides medical support services in far-flung environments around the world. In my new position, I was sent again to Afghanistan, but this time I didn’t have guns or armor to protect me. I had a suitcase, a backpack and some cash.

Afghanistan Ranger 2
After leaving the Army, Matthew Griffin launched Combat Flip Flops to provide economic opportunity to war-torn areas.

But the places I visited this time around were vibrant and thriving — and people seemed happy. My eyes were opened: If an area was flourishing economically, that meant it was also safe.
“Why aren’t we bringing our economy to Afghanistan?” I asked myself. We have the most powerful economy on the planet. If we could use that influence to promote security, we wouldn’t have to waste a single bullet or sacrifice a soldier.
On one of my missions to Afghanistan with RMI, I came across a combat-boot factory. I saw the base of a boot and thought it was ugly in a cool sort of way and that if we put some straps on it, we could sell it to Americans.
I called up a fellow Ranger, Donald Lee, who had served with me in Afghanistan. Lee was the guy who, during an operations briefing, would sound off and say an idea was shit — despite the fact that he had a lower rank than me. That’s something you just don’t see every day in the Rangers.
I asked him if wanted to make flip-flops in Afghanistan. When you’re doing something crazy and new, you want to do it with someone you can trust to watch out for you. Plus, Lee and I had already gone through plenty of crazy missions together. He said yes.
So in 2012 we started Combat Flip Flops. The idea was that we would go into war-torn areas and open factories there for local entrepreneurs to make products for the U.S. market. Part of the proceeds then fund charities and NGOs that focus on solving local issues, such as girls’ education in Afghanistan, or assistance for veterans back home.
Currently, we’re in three countries: Afghanistan, Colombia and Laos. We’ll design a product and then travel to areas where business opportunities for local residents are scarce. We teach these men and women how to make, export and market the products — besides footwear, we also sell other apparel and accessories — to American audiences.
In Laos, for example, where the U.S. dropped over 270 million bombs in the 1970s and where 80 million of them can still explode unexpectedly, we have local residents manufacture jewelry and fashion accessories from unexploded ordnance. A portion of the revenue then funds the clearance of even more mines in the area. 
We’re creating local leaders, and our strategy has been successful. One of our footwear manufacturers, for example, started with five employees and now has about 35. Last year we donated 2.5 percent of our gross revenue, roughly $30,000, to philanthropic initiatives — that’s a massive amount for our company. We’re able to do that because we run so lean.
I started in the military thinking my mission was simple: Find the bad guys and help my country. But then I learned that in order to help, I really needed to become a visitor and a welcome partner, not an invader.

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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.

A Mission Unchanged

Posted on by robbie

I wanted to go into combat. After all, that’s what Marines are expected, trained and prepared to do. I wasn’t prepared to lose my legs, though.
I grew up on a horse farm in Lovettsville, Virginia. I had a pretty normal childhood — had chores to do, had friends, went to school. I was 20 when I joined the Marines in 2005, and it was a completely different journey than I had originally planned for myself. I didn’t grow up in a military family, per se. My father was drafted during the Vietnam era, but he never actually had to go over there, so I didn’t hear much about it.
My inspiration to join the Marines came from the book Brotherhood of Heroes, which is the story of a group of Marines toughing through World War II. They had traits that I didn’t possess that I wanted: courage, respect and a sense of purpose.
So I left college during my junior year at Virginia Tech and enlisted. Two years later, when my reserve unit asked for volunteers to be shipped to Iraq, my hand went right up.
I remember when they were reading the names of the people who were going on the platoon, I was nervous — like the kind of nervous when you’re nominated for an award and don’t know if you’re gonna get it or not. Then they did call my name, and I was excited and happy about it.
But nothing really happened that tour. And even though by that point I had gained most — if not all — of the traits I wanted when I enlisted, my mission as a Marine did not end. We were still at war, and there were more battles to be fought. And because I’m a Marine, my purpose was to fight those battles.

Mission Marines 2
Rob Jones (second from left) joined the Marines to develop courage and a sense of purpose.

It was during a tour in 2009 when things changed for me.
My team and I were going to Afghanistan, when it was kind of heating back up. We were clearing safe routes through danger areas — areas that had a high likelihood of containing improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
If we were gonna cross a bridge and we thought there might be IEDs on either side of the bridge, I would go clear the bridge of IEDs and then everybody would follow me across and continue on.
As we were doing a push into Taliban territory, there was an area we needed to check for IEDs. I ended up stepping on one.
After I woke up — about 20 seconds later — I realized what had happened. The other Marines ran over and applied tourniquets. The corpsman came and gave me morphine, and they loaded me onto a stretcher, took me to a tank and then the corpsman there gave me another shot that made me unconscious. I went from the site of injury to Maryland, all within five days.  
It’s a weird feeling to think you’ll never walk again, and to know you’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.
But sitting there and wondering whether or not something was fair or deserved didn’t really matter. I realized, kind of instinctively, that just because I was a double amputee didn’t mean that I didn’t still have a mission or purpose in life, which was to make it enjoyable and meaningful —  and to get back on my feet and get my self-reliance back.
Mission Marines 3
Even after losing both his legs in Afghanistan, Rob Jones maintained his sense of humor and positive outlook on life.

My overall mission, to fight America’s battles, didn’t change. It just shifted.
You look at any Hollywood movie about a veteran, and I’d say there’s about a 100 percent chance it features a vet who came back broken and nearly destroyed his family. It’s an important story to show — and it’s a true story that does happen — but it’s not the story of all of us. And I want to show that.
Since my injury, I’ve received the USRowing Man of the Year award in 2012. In 2016, I was a bronze medalist in the triathlon at the Paralympics. I’ve been invited to throw out first pitches at major league baseball games. Last year, I ran 31 marathons in 31 days.
I did all of this not just to prove that I could do it, but to show America how strong our service members are.
There are plenty of awards I’ve won as a disabled athlete to prove I’m worthy and still a strong Marine. But I think the most rewarding thing I get is when people come up to me and tell me that I made a difference for them. Because at the end of the day, I do this to show others what’s possible, and to show people this journey that I’ve created despite the obvious shortcoming of losing my legs.
There are plenty of us in the military who have lost our legs — especially in these past few wars — but we’re not broken. We’re Marines. Oorah!

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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.

Battling Discrimination on the Battlefield

Posted on by robbie

I will never forget the moment when I was told I wouldn’t do much in my life.
I was in high school in the Bronx, where I grew up, and one of my grades had dipped to a C. I was called into a counselor’s office. She was on the phone with my parents.
“With these grades,” I remember her saying, “she’ll only be a secretary.”
Before that moment, I had wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to do something good and help people. Maybe it was the color of my skin, maybe it was the expectations of women back then. Whatever it was, after that moment, I knew that I would have to fight harder to get what I wanted.
I went to nursing school right after high school. And though I had never considered a career in the armed forces, serving people has always been a part of what I do — it’s part of the job, being a nurse. You care for people. You do no harm.
So when, at 30 years old, I was recruited to be a nurse for the Army, I didn’t think much of it. It was another opportunity to serve. The recruiter came to the hospital I was working at and, along with my friend, we were sworn in — right in front of our patients.

Battling Discrimination 2
After retiring from the military, Annette Tucker Osborne became the Brooklyn, New York, chapter president of the National Association of Black Military Women.

From there, we were sent off to basic training at Fort Devens in Massachusetts. From the moment we arrived to the moment we left, we were all told the same thing: You are not different. As a woman, it was actually refreshing to hear, because it was the opposite of degrading. If a man had to run this long, so did you. If a man had to do this work, so did you. We were equals in that camp.
But that’s not to say that prejudice doesn’t exist in the military, despite how diverse it is.
In 2012, when I was deployed to Kuwait, I was brought into a base camp as chief nurse to help oversee  soldier health. When I met the officer — a white man from Alabama — he looked at me, then looked down at my résumé. He couldn’t put the two together. He seemed unable to equate a black woman with the well-polished and extremely qualified person on paper.
“Sir,” I told him. “What you see on that résumé is me. I’ve worked hard for what’s on my résumé.”
After working together for quite a long time, he eventually came to trust me. After all, he kind of needed to, if he wanted to know what was going on medically with our soldiers.
And then, out in the desert, there were some young service members who don’t want to salute you. I’d stop a few every now and then, asking if they could see my rank as an Army colonel.
After I retired from the service, I was approached by the National Association of Black Military Women, a national organization dedicated to providing support and visibility for women just like me.
As the president of the Brooklyn chapter, which has only been around for a year, I’ve already seen tremendous success in our effort to get the word out to other women that they are not alone. There is a place for them in the military, as well as afterward. We aim to make the point to young women of color, just like it was made to me back in basic, that you are not different. You are just as strong. Continue to persevere and know your goals.
Take it from me: No one can tell you what you can and can’t be in your future.

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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.

My New Mission: Saving Vets Who Can’t Save Themselves

Posted on by robbie

I wish I could’ve saved my soldiers.
I was 22 years old when I became a platoon leader overseeing and taking care of 40 soldiers in combat in 2010. At the time, I had only done one tour — 12 months — in Iraq. But many of my soldiers had served four or five tours and had seen much more than I had.
Our job was to drive up and down the International Highway, which connected Kuwait to Iraq, and build relationships with local Iraqi police and sheiks. But we also had to check for improvised explosives, or IEDs.
We didn’t get all of them. In one case, before heading out on a mission, a U.S. envoy truck came careening into our base, half blown to hell and torn to shreds. In the back: three dead bodies. We had missed an IED.
There’s a lot of guilt in seeing something like that, and it can lead to a major symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder called survivor’s remorse. There is a wear on the brain and the body that goes into being in the military, especially for those deployed.
But were you ever to suggest talking to a therapist, you’d be hard-pressed to find many service members who would take you up on it. In the military, getting mental health treatment is viewed as a weakness — which, besides the negative stigma, is just plain wrong. There were soldiers who’d give therapy a try, only to leave after a single session and say, “I don’t feel better. I need to get back to the unit. I need to help out. This is an hour out of my time when I could be spending that with my family.”
And within a few years, there were people in my unit who had attempted suicide. It’s been seven years since I left Iraq, and in that time we’ve lost two people who were in my unit, one of whom I directly oversaw.
As a platoon leader, I viewed it as my responsibility to take care of our soldiers beyond getting the mission done. But with the news of the suicides came a sense that I had failed as their leader. It was my responsibility to take care of these guys, just like they took care of us.
After I retired from the military in 2015, I went to business school in Philadelphia. It had become my mission to find out how I could make our soldiers know that therapy could actually work for them, if only they would stick with it. Just as you wouldn’t return to your normal, daily routine after breaking an arm and undergoing one session with a physical therapist, neither should you expect to be fully recuperated after one session with a mental health professional.

Chris Molaro (left) served in Iraq as a liaison to local police and sheiks.

But, I soon realized, to get soldiers into therapy and keep them there, they needed to see — physically, with their own eyes — the progress they were making.
I read up on research that showed how you can use EEG technology, which measures electrical activity in the brain, to also measure one’s emotions. That was when a light bulb just went off, like, “Holy shit, you could make mental health as black and white as a broken arm.”
That meant therapists could measure and track the progress of patients, objectively. And by doing so, they could fight that negative stigma and give people more hope.
So I developed NeuroFlow. The idea is simple: Give therapists a technology that uses basic and affordable medical supplies, like EEGs or heart rate monitors, to examine the health of their clients. That way, patients could see how their heart races — literally — in real time as they talk about something traumatic. And then, over the course of their sessions, they would be able to see their heart rate slow down and return to a more relaxed state as they healed.
This is my new mission: helping the veteran community. With 20 vets killing themselves in the U.S. every day, there is still a lot of work to be done. So I can’t quite say my mission is complete … yet.

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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.

Standing for Country, Standing for Self

Posted on by robbie

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.

Discovering a New Way to Serve

Posted on by robbie

When I joined the Army, I thought I was 9 feet tall and bulletproof. I was Rambo. All it took was breathing in some toxic dust to change that.
My time in the service was cut far too short by a medical injury. (I was planning to retire in the military.) This caused me to go into a downward spiral of self-hate that resulted in me becoming a full-time alcoholic. During the worst of it, I’d end up drunk and sleeping on my mother’s doorstep. But after getting help and recognizing that there is life after injury, I vowed to spend my time helping other vets going through addiction.
In 2001, I was stationed at a port in Serbia with the Kosovo Force. We trekked across dirt roads with the turret doors of our tanks open, breathing in sand and dust that was laced with chemical warfare from when Yugoslavia faced off against the Soviets. We never wore gas masks.
Days later, my organs were shutting down. I had an enlarged heart. I quit breathing for long enough that it caused a brain injury. I was being read my last rites by the station’s chaplain and a plot was being picked out back home in West Virginia.
Miraculously, though, I survived. When I got back to the U.S., I was 100 pounds lighter. I looked like I had a gunshot wound in the chest or had been bit by a shark with all the staples covering my body.

Greathouse nearly lost his life after being exposed to toxic dust in a war zone.

The doctors gave me just a few years to live. I fought to see my children grow up, even though I recognized I probably would never play ball with my son or walk my daughter down the aisle.
But the comfort of family only went so far. After a year and a half of not being able to walk, being in rehabilitation and feeling like I was losing my mind or that my life was over, I fell into a deep depression.
I started self-medicating, and tequila was the easiest substance to get a hold of. I didn’t become a drunk overnight, but it didn’t take a long time, either, because the alcohol became the only thing that helped me function.
After about a decade of watching the disappointment in my children and parents’ eyes, I decided to get help at the Veterans Administration hospital in Huntington, W.V.
Through recreational therapy, I was truly able to turn my life around. It put me among guys just like myself — we were all injured in some way and a bit to ourselves. After I went whitewater rafting for the first time and experienced that thrill, I felt brand new.
I began to recognize that I didn’t need to be depressed about my situation. Sure, I may be disabled, but I’ve gotten awards for snowboarding.
After struggling with depression and addiction, Greathouse found healing through recreational therapy.

Today, I spend my time volunteering with the VA helping veterans get through their struggles. I have my own home now. My kids and my mom have seen me crawling through a house; now they see me assisting others.
I lost more than a decade of my life to alcohol. Through recovery, I’ve learned that life’s too precious and losing one day is too much.
I joined the military out of a sense of service. And though I can’t continue to serve my country in that capacity anymore, I’ve dedicated my life to other veterans. I guide them through the process, counsel them or whatever is needed.
I want to be there and help them.
As told to NationSwell staff writer Joseph Darius Jaafari. This essay has been edited for clarity and style. Read more stories of service here.

My Final Act of Service

Posted on by robbie

Two years ago, I was built like a tank. I’ve been built like that my entire life, having grown up as a wrestler in high school and college. Once, way back then, someone looked at me and said, “What the hell are you?”
I look much different now. It’s hard for me to speak for long periods of time, and I’m about half the size I used to be. Now, I’m happy to just get up and walk, which is a mental challenge all by itself. The guy I used to be has been destroyed by chemotherapy.
In late 2015, I was diagnosed with stage-four cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer that starts in the bile ducts. I don’t know how much time I have left; I may not even make it to my 55th birthday this December. But I’m happy that I can go knowing I’ve lived my life in complete service to others and to my family.
Except I have a teenage son, and there’s still so much to teach him.
I won’t be able to impart my wisdom to Mason as he grows up. That’s why I’m making sure he knows now the importance of living a life in service, like I have. The lessons are simple: Be humble, be open and be helpful.
Growing up, my father was constantly working, which meant he wasn’t around a ton. He did the best he could though, and I considered him my best friend. But I didn’t have someone who could mentally challenge me. I got into wrestling in the seventh grade, and my coach became that person for me instead. He ended up being a formidable figure in my life, and I’m still in touch with him today.
You could tell immediately that this man had served in the military — through his mannerisms, his attention to detail and his level of concentration. I thought, “This guy is incredible.” At an early age, my coach gave me advice that to this day I continue to take to heart:
“Don’t be a wise guy,” he would tell me. “Don’t be a showboat.”
Eventually, I joined the Marines, and that advice is what got me through basic training. Now, it’s something I teach Mason at every opportunity. We have a lot of big talks these days — especially now that I don’t know how long I have left to live — and I try to tell him who I was before the military.
I tell him not to be that guy.
When I enlisted in 1982, I was a very private person. In fact, you could say I was pretty closed off. But interaction with people is important, and you have to be open and outgoing. There is just something about being open to new experiences that makes life more meaningful. It also makes you not afraid to help people.

Time in the Marines inspired Anthony Egan to pursue a life of service.

There is nothing more gratifying than helping others, and there are many avenues for doing that — not just through the military.
I joined the Marines after one year of college because I simply didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. In fact, the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman,” about a guy who joins the Navy, came out right before I signed up, and that shaped what I thought the military was going to be like.
I was wrong.
My time in the military wasn’t like a Richard Gere action-romance film. It was tough, and it was terrifying. But it also made me grow into a man that started to think to myself, “What can I do to give back?” What the Marines did was laser-focus my attention and instilled in me the idea that, “Hey, you’re capable of a hell of a lot more than what you’re doing now.”
I left the service in 1988, and it haunted me for a long time. I just missed it so badly. I still say that the Marine Corps was the best job I ever had. But I can no longer regret leaving, because I have the best family God could give me, and I would never have met my wife and had Mason if I had stayed.
“What the Marines did was laser-focus my attention,” Egan says. “It instilled in me the idea that, ‘Hey, you’re capable of a hell of a lot more than what you’re doing now.'”

But here’s the thing: When you serve, the experience never truly leaves you; it always stays with you. Every time something tragic occurred, I would quietly shed a tear. When 9/11 happened, I was choked up watching the coverage on TV. I felt like I should be there — I needed to help.
So off I went to Ground Zero, wearing my old and dated fatigues from the ’80s, and was able to get my way onto the search and rescue team that pulled out the first five people. It was surreal; everyone had the same look on their face, much like how they talk about the empty thousand-yard stare of soldiers who served in Vietnam. There was a gray, pinkish powder in the air, like debris mixed with blood. And it covered everything.
My cancer, my family and I believe, has a direct correlation to my time helping on the pile. But I wouldn’t take any of it back, and Mason knows that.  
And that’s because service is part of me, now. I tell Mason constantly that being in service is such a selfless act. It’s contributing to something bigger than yourself. It just requires humility and the willingness to be open to help others.
Luckily for me, Mason already has most of these traits. But he’s only 14 and has a lot of growing up ahead of him and will face situations where I won’t be there to talk to him.
And that is the one thing that kills me — figuratively, of course — feeling like I’ve let down my son by dying too soon.
He’s talking right now of going to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. I hope he does. He’s smart and creative, and good in science and math. I can see him being a biomechanical engineer or something similar.
But even if he doesn’t go into military, I just want him to be happy helping people. I tell him that if he sees someone who needs help, help them. It’s a really good feeling. I promise.
As told to NationSwell staff writer Joseph Darius Jaafari. This essay has been edited for clarity an style. Read more stories of service here.

Update: Anthony Egan passed away on Sunday, Nov. 19, 2017, with his family by his side. He served as a corporal in the intelligence unit of the U.S. Marines from 1982 until 1988. He then spent more than 20 years working in the pharmaceutical industry. He is survived by his wife and son in New Jersey.