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T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
Transitioning from service to civilian life.
00:30:05
Rob Sarver and Alex Gendzier have authored a definitive guide to transition to civilian life for veterans and their spouses and families.
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You're listening to the N2K space network.
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Leaving the military is often a very daunting task. The transition into civilian life is filled with uncertainty for both veterans and their families. Where does a transitioning service member begin when embarking on this next part of their journey? And who can help them on this hero's journey? Welcome to T Minus deep space from N2K Networks. I'm Maria Varmazes. Lieutenant Rob Sarver and Alex Genzior are the authors of Warrior to Civilian the Field Manual for the Hero's Journey, the definitive guide to transition to civilian life for veterans, their spouses and families. This book aims to provide actionable advice to veterans looking for work while coaching those in hiring positions to give veterans the fair shake they deserve after serving our country. It's a journey that many in the space industry have already embarked on and we hope that this conversation can help those who will be making the transition in the future.
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Yes, hi, thank you for having us. So Rob Sarver I graduated naval academy 20 years ago, spent nine years active duty, seven deployments, majority of my time spending the SEAL teams. Seal Team 3 left in 2013 and pursued finance through a veterans integration program with Goldman Sachs, which brought me to Dallas, Texas. I've been here ever since, almost 12 years now. Got about, I don't know, probably about a year into Goldman I realized how far behind I was with my peer group after serving in two conflicts with Iraq, Afghanistan, with the probably three years of my life that I spent over there in the sandbox. So applied, went back and do it, did an MBA program at Wharton while I was working at Goldman and then after two and a half years I jumped off, gave entrepreneurship a shot, failed fast, went down in flames, went back into a publicly traded company doing tech consulting with one of the big four, did the roadshow for a couple years, gave entrepreneurship another crack. And then I got hired on to do private equity. And that's where I started working with Alex on the debt credit side. But I'll pause there. With my background, let Alex go, because that's a good segue into how the book came about.
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Yes, please, Alex, tell us a bit about yourself as well.
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I'm a lawyer, love my job, love working with clients. Rob and I met just as he said, and also as my older son was heading into the military and was trying to get into the Naval Academy. And Rob was instrumental and became his mentor. And so as part of that, that caused me to rethink my own life and my own impulse or desire at certain times to serve. And I never had that honor. And so when my older son did that, it triggered some reflection. But I also wanted him to have something for when he got out, in the likely event that I'm no longer here. None of us last forever. And it really caused, on a deeply personal basis, a desire to give him something that became, for each of us, for each of Rob and me, a much, much bigger sense of mission and duty and obligation to those that have served.
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Well, thank you both so much for joining me. And you're here to talk to me about your new book that's just coming out right now. Congratulations, by the way. That is a monumental effort. So the book is called Warrior to the Field, Manual for the Hero's Journey. Let's start maybe with the title of the book about it being the Hero's Journey. I think that's a. Let's refamiliarize ourselves with what the Hero's Journey means. Exactly. And what it means in this context, because it's been a little while when I learned my archetypes in English class, and I have actually, admittedly forgotten. So I would love a reminder. Rob, you want to take that one?
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Sure. I'll start us off. And Alex, you know, five years ago when we started this project, very eloquent when he said that, you know, every veteran's journey is one of great nobility and purpose and honor. And he took that. He looked at my service and everybody around him, his service. And he said he's. This is very. Coalesce is the wrong word, but kind of works with the Hero's Journey from Joseph campbell from the 1940s. And the more I looked at it, like, wow, this Is a great framework for veterans because every veteran service, we all serve under the same why for the Constitution. The how and the what we serve is very different with when you get in different service and different combat arms to aviation, to tank, mechanized, it really. But we all had this call to adventure. We all left our homes, this known world, known universe, and we went to this unknown universe and we received mentorship and training. But we probably most of us went through some sort of tragedy and some of us came out through some sort of death, rebirth, came out new and reformed and took those experiences. And as we come back out of this, it's four or five years or 20 years or 30 plus years of service to this known world. What we're finding and what we've seen through hundreds of interviews is over 70% of veterans experience stress. But beneath that, beneath the surface, there is lying Alex. And I call it the fog. The veteran is unable to return, to make the full return, that last phase of the journey, to complete that and come back. What is it? The new version of you, the new knowledge to find, repurpose. And that's unfortunately, it's ptsd, tbi, physical injury, moral injury. There's something preventing that veteran from being the full self. So, Alex, do you want to add to that with how you frame this out?
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Yeah. You've hit on the most essential pieces. What I would add is that as we began interviewing, we unknowingly, we took an approach that social scientists like Brene Brown use in her books. You come up with a theory and then you go test it by interviews, by research. And over these last five years of interviews and research, we saw patterns developing, and it caused us to think how to use that sense, that understanding for the greater good, to draw lessons from it. Our sense was that people that go through enormous life transitions and moving from the military to civilian life is one of the largest. In fact, it's like, for many, it's like falling off a cliff. From the known customary world that one is in that's comfortable because you're familiar with it, to the great unknown. And in thinking about our own lives, we recognized that falling into a dark abyss where you don't know which way is north. So in thinking about that and then realizing there's better and worse ways to manage life transitions, we hope to learn from these patterns we saw. And in the patterns, we recognized the roots of this idea from the Joseph Campbell move most recently popularized, which is this is a way of understanding the journey of heroes. And so we began to think about it. And the short version of this is that the journey of heroes, Rob outlined the call to adventure, the period of great service and even sacrifice and loss. But how do you come back? How do you come back to the civilian world? How do you come back to this civilian world with all of what you've gone through that you believe most civilians, for pretty genuine reasons, don't understand? How do you come back and relate to your family? How do you come back? And as one of our close friends explained to us and reminded us, you've got black belt skills in the military world, but it's like you have to start over again with a white belt. And. And is that the right way to think about it? And so although I've said it's the short version, I've been talking for a while. What we saw was that the veterans and spouses, because they're critical too here that come back and realize how to integrate the great skills and life experience that they've had to acquire, if they can apply them to the civilian world, they have tremendous gifts. And in that story is a way to look at your life. So as Rob and I, because Rob and I felt a deep obligation to be honest about our own lives as we're telling the story of veterans bearing their souls, we have to reciprocate. We have to be that kind of honest. And so what we felt was available from all this, and this is the punchline, is if you, as the veteran or the spouse can look at your life in this way, you can see the gifts you have that you can develop your life with and you can share, and you can look at your life as a tremendously powerful, noble, epic story. That's what it came down to.
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Wow. And I will admit as well, total ignorance as a civilian of what my veteran friends have gone through. And this is something, whenever this topic comes up, I go, you know, I can't understand. So this is. I really greatly appreciate also what you both just said about this. So I wanted you both mentioned about these conversations that you were having with veterans about this incredibly difficult, stressful transition. And I'm curious about any stories specifically that stuck with you that you wanted to highlight. Rob, go ahead.
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There's countless stories of veterans who've overcome, you know, adversity or some sort of physical, mental, moral trauma. But they all, they all went through this, this great death and rebirth to kind of refine themselves, but it took self realization. So another framework that we use is Heracles Circles of concern. And if you look at that, they're Concentric circles going out. Well, we have to start with the self. And if you're not honest with yourself, if you're not willing to go take the hard look that and fix yourself or go seek the help, you're never going to be able to function within the family environment or the family unit. And we know that the nexus or the collection of those family units that makes our community, that's what we're in service of. If you look at John Bernays Shard's quotes about communities, but then, and then again the spider web continues, right? The communities form this great country that we call the United States. So it really does start with the self. And part of refinding that new purpose is fixing yourself so you can function and go on and do these other things that are allowing you to contribute to fulfill that great purpose that we had in the service of the country.
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Alex, anything to add to that?
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You know the ones that stick with me are not from the incredibly generous, admirable flag officers that have made our book possible and they've given us endorsements and that means the world to us. The stories that stick with me are from the folks that are not so famous that have been through, been through hell and come out and found ways to heal themselves and make a contribution to the world. I'll just throw out some snippets.
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And.
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This guy got some press, but frankly not enough. There's a Marine Raider, Derek Herrera, who was leading his platoon in Afghanistan. He got ambushed, he got paralyzed, he thought he was dying. He took out a picture of his wife to say goodbye and he called in the medevac to get his guys out because there were plenty of wounded. So he was doing this while he was dying and his guys got him out. And in his hospital bed in Germany with his wife by his side, he said, I'm going to go make a difference and make something of this experience. In his hospital bed he went and got an MBA and he created companies that produce innovative, life changing medical devices for people with spinal cord injuries. He's in a wheelchair. He's one of the most inspiring, noble, funny, great people I've ever met in my life. I don't have a bad day that compares to what he went through. And it's not that you kind of take advantage of someone else to make yourself feel better. This is a life inspiring story. There's many of them. There's the story of a Vietnam vet who was also a Marine in the platoon of the father of a mentor of mine from work who for 60 years has been carrying around a burden that this guy took his place on a rescue mission to save two guys while the army of North Vietnam Arvin were encircling them and Major Ram saved them and then was killed. And this guy's been carrying that with him since 1967. And his participation in our book, along with many other things was one aspect of his catharsis. There's the story of these are snippets our book tells. More. There's the story of two women that were both attacked while in the military who suffered great trauma, lost their family and they came back and found a way to healing and to make a contribution to those around them. And they are two of the most powerful people I've ever met in my life. And their endorsements literally knocked me off my couch in tears about how they felt about contributing and giving a voice to themselves in our book. So you've asked a topic that gets us going.
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We'll be right back after this quick break.
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I yeah, I the question in my mind is that you both you started touching on is what are those resources available to people? But before I get to that, I mean it's just I know as a civilian we don't support our veterans nearly enough. I mean, I know we don't and it's criminal that we don't frankly. And I know from my many friends who have been through this transition process, they don't like being described as heroes. They hate it. And they've often been, you know, it felt like they were totally on their own when they came out of the military and I had what on earth Could I possibly offer my friends who've been through this? I don't know what they've been through. And how can we help? What can we tell people? Where can we point our veterans to so they don't feel like they're just flailing when they come out of the military and just being told, figure it out on your own. What can we do?
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I mean, I think the relationship that Alex and I have, we hope that this is the model for other folks to emulate. Right. But I'm going to be very honest. Alex and I, we also realize that we're also standing on the shoulders of giants for the folks that have gone before us. And we are a microcosm of this happening all over the country because 250,000 vets are getting out every year. But what I would, what I would hope is emulated. Why this experience in this five years of writing this book is mentorship. You don't have to have every resource in the world, like, we've done all that work for you. There's countless, there's, I think 40,000 nonprofits in the US that benefit veterans. The resources are out there. We synthesize and aggregated it for everybody. But the true mentorship and mentorship beyond, hey, I'm going to help you find a job. Okay. That's only one piece of the puzzle, right?
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Yeah.
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It's having those very honest conversations with them, like, hey, you really need to go speak to someone. You've been through something that's completely different. And I don't understand, like, there's just a delta of knowledge that I can't process because of what you've been through. True mentorship. But then I would also say, if you know those folks and identify that are getting out, tell them to start preparing 12 to 24 months out. You have to. Everything we did in the military was in preparation of training, real life missions, going to war, whatever that is. But we do nothing to train to get out. And we were, we were admonished by a good friend of ours. He's become a good friend who's actually in the movie Black Hawk down, then became the command sergeant major at Delta. And he said it perfectly. He's like, we do nothing to train our folks to get out of the military. So being that voice, being that mentor will carry weight, extreme weight.
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Thank you for that, Rob.
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The import of what Rob said is whether you're active duty, thinking about getting out, or you've been out for a day, a year, 10 years, take this transition seriously. This is an Enormous life transition. And in a way that leads to, I think, a great sense of purpose and strength and what one can contribute. It lasts a lifetime, as does any life transition, as do the life transitions Rob and I have had and we are undergoing. Take it seriously. And the components of our book are meant to assist in every phase. Preparation, reintegration. Take your healing seriously. Rob touched on that at the beginning. Take your healing seriously. If you are not whole, it is as if you are carrying around a rucksack every day when you wake up with an extra £50 you don't need to carry. And some of these wounds are not visible and some are. Take seriously the idea that you can refind purpose in life and it can be an incredible, fulfilling, impactful, joyful, loving purpose. Take that seriously. Take seriously the idea that you have to work just as hard in civilian life to make it happen as you did outside the wire, as we say in the book. So another friend of ours, close friend of each of Robin and mine, teammate of Rob's, said the challenge on civilian terrain, the difficulty is no less challenging than in the military. And he's a combat veteran. Take this seriously. Train for the mission.
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I would be remiss if I didn't also ask about support for military families and spouses especially. My producer is a military spouse, so I know she especially wants me to ask about this, but it is a really, I mean, part of the picture. Thoughts on that? Families play such a huge role here.
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They do. And I grew up in a military family, so between my father's service, going to military school and my service, I kind of. I laugh and joke like, I never had to schedule my own dental appointment for 33 years until I got out. And I was like, wait, what do I do? I have to go. I get to go pick who I want to see. So, yeah, the small things, right? But what we recognized, and this actually came from a good friend of mine who's a SEAL and unfortunately, his first combat op in Afghanistan, he was taking the high ground and walked into an IED field and lost both his legs. But the guys crawled in, put tourniquets on him, saved his life. And Dan's another success story. Going off and dual degrees from Harvard. And I think he's won six, seven medals at the Paralympics in the Winter Paralympics. Just phenomenal. But he's the one that came back to us. As Alex said, we went out and we stress test the book, our theories and what we postulated. And he's like, guys, you have nothing for spouses and Children like, wow, you're totally right. And that sent us on another year of doing all the research, finding the best resources, the counselors to talk to. But what we found was the common themes of these spouses served the country as well. Maybe not in uniform, but. But they were right there taking the sacrifice and filling all those voids while the service member was off doing the job. So they are going to lose their identity. They're going to lose their community. So you have to start having these conversations very early as a family unit to just reduce that stress, because there is a stressor coming. And the last thing you want to do is start making decisions without the collective understanding or the cohesion of the family unit to what you want to do. So, but, but all we, we combine all these resources into annexes. They're on our website, heroes, journey.net. those are out there. There's plenty of resources in the book. There's some frameworks, but there's probably too many to mention. But we spent a year researching that and consolidating it down for the spouses. But Alex, anything you add on that one chapter.
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To veterans and to military spouses or family members, please understand and please listen that your transition is as momentous, as important as that of the veteran. It is parallel, but different. We urge you to take it seriously. There's support out there. After a year of research in the way Rob describes, we distilled down the lessons that we learned and saw from people who were incredibly motivated to help us, because there's no book that deals with spouse and family member transition from the military, which is an enormous hole that we hope to help fill, among others. Take it seriously. There is such a thing as secondary ptsd, for example, that children and spouses suffer from, with a CBS segment on that. And don't take for granted that because your spouse comes home. And by spouse, we mean partner, married, whatever, that. It's easy street. It's a readjustment process. And like any relationship, like any marriage, it needs constant investment and care. And it's a big adjustment for the family unit when the veteran is no longer active duty. So there is tremendous life opportunity, but you need to pay attention to it and there's resources.
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Wonderful, gentlemen. Thank you both so much. I wanted to make sure that I let you both sort of wrap up with any final thoughts about this incredible work that you've done. What you want people to take away from this book. Any reflections. I mean, this has been a fascinating, really, really fascinating conversation. I thank you so much for spending the time with me today. I just wanted to again give you that opportunity for some wrap up thoughts. We've been going sort of Rob, Alex, I don't know if you want to do the same order at this point.
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For the wrap up.
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No. Thank you and again, thank you. Thank you for your listeners and thank you especially for your time. But one quote that Alex and I really, really enjoyed was Churchill. When you're going through hell, keep going. There will be stress. It is coming, but the more you prepare for it, the more you can mitigate it. But again, when you are finding yourself, maybe in that fog or stepping off that cliff to the abyss, there are resources out there and there's people willing to help. Don't give up. Don't ever give up.
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I think that's critical. That's really the final takeaway, which is there are times when it seems hopeless, your situation, what you're suffering from, how to get out of it, how to get where you want. Never give up. There is hope. There is inspiration. There are therapies on the medical side that didn't exist a year ago, let alone 10 years ago. The weird thing I would add is that our publisher, we're very lucky to have the publisher of Hachette, but has not printed enough books. So if folks want the book, they should order it because apparently it's running out. The title of the book is Warrior to the Field Manual for the Hero's Journey. And our website, which Rob mentioned, has resources. The website is heroes-journey.net and we're inviting people to come tell their stories. We would love that. So don't lose hope. Reach out. If our book is helpful to you, get it now and come visit us. Come tell us your story.
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That's it for T minus Deep Space, brought to you by N2K CyberWire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. You can email us@space2k.com or submit the survey in the show notes. Your feedback ensures we deliver the information that keep keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. Deep Space is produced by Alice Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
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SA foreign.
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