FIT FOR 2020: Building Engagement with Younger Veterans

FIT FOR 2020 was the catch cry and vision for the RSL & Services Clubs 16th Annual Conference held at the Adelaide Convention Centre over three days 11 - 13 September 2017. According to CEO, Garrie Gibson, "The next decade is only a short time away and every year, competition for Club patronage is stronger and more fierce. Is your Club ‘Fit for 2020’? Do you have the structures, the products and services, policies and practices, the right staff and leadership team to sustain the business in the new decade? If you say no to any or all of these components, you have just three years to engage with the innovative and experienced professionals in our industry to prepare you!"

I had the great pleasure of being invited to share my insights about how the RSL & Services Clubs could understand and improve their engagement with younger veterans. Here are some snap shots from my presentation.

" I joined the Army back in 1987 at the tender age of 18. I was looking for a place to belong and something better to do than working at the local tourist information centre. After turning down the RAAF to be a communications operator and the Navy band, I battled my way through each gruelling Army Officer selection interview. In January 1987, I finally boarded the bus for my new adventure. Of course, the appropriate way to turn up to the Royal Military College was in a pink silk dress with bright red hair and what I thought was a fabulous perm! I can only imagine the shock and horror on the drill sergeants faces when they saw me, hair wild and untamed, with a big smile on my face. At that point I had no idea how I was meant to behave or who these strangely stiff and abnormally vertical, angry looking men with shiny black boots and a polished stick under their arm were?  

If that wasn’t strange enough, these starched stiff mechanical beings would take great umbrage if my arms weren’t glued to my sides. At that point strange just got weird! If my arms weren’t in place, those strange men, with a language all of their own, bellowed that if my arms didn’t remain by my sides, they were going to rip them off, stick them in my ears, and ride me around like a motorbike. You get it, that was funny! Well I thought it was, and that only invited a new tirade of interesting suggestions about what they would do, should I not close my mouth!

A couple of days in, and I had already accumulated a significant wardrobe of clothes that looked like something out of a 1940s-war documentary. I’d been in and out of them at least ten times, each time having to present myself, after a change that was timed, to the critical and disapproving eyes of my senior class, who inevitably just shook their heads and sent me to change again. This didn’t seem too bad – a new wardrobe, although not my style, a few quick changes of clothes??? that’s usually what an 18 year-old girl does on a Friday night before she goes out anyway.

Now 30 years on, I find myself inextricably connected, in fact woven into the fabric of the the Australian Defence Force. When I graduated in 1989 I marched out with a purpose! I knew my job was to care for, lead and mentor my soldiers to be the best version of themselves they could be. My purpose and responsibility was to fight for and champion the rights of my soldiers and their families. What I discovered overtime, was the most effective way I could do this, was to be the best version of me I could be, and to always have my soldiers’ welfare in the front of my mind. As I reflect back over the past 30 years, and on the role I now play in the veteran’s community, I know I remain true and in fact matured in my purpose.

Today's Veteran Community. Now, as a nerdy academic, in my spare time, beyond my lived experience, I’ve done a bit of research to back up my personal opinion. Actually, I’ve done quite a lot of research and hope to share this over time to help the community and veterans themselves understand why their service is unique, why they sometimes struggle assimilating back into normal life, why they feel different and alienated from the civilian community and why they find it so hard to transition and connect with broader society.

In short, most ADF members join with very little employment experience and are therefore highly susceptible to organizational messages, expectations and requirements. According to academic evidence ADF members indoctrinated into such an influential culture can experience adjustment problems upon re-entry into larger society. This is because the ADF has a pervasive culture of norms, traditions, values and perceptions that influence the way defence force personnel think, experience community and interact with one another and civilians (mental models). Upon recruitment, through training and reinforced within the culture of the organization, Defence values are aggressively imposed upon ADF members and these norms regulate their lives on a daily basis in and out of the organisation. “The military believes that the ubiquitous application of their standards of conduct is necessary because members of the armed forces must be ready at all times to be deployed into combat”(Coll, Weiss, Yarvis, 2011, p.489).

The mental models developed through training, culture and over time become highly immobile because they are abstract cognitive constructs unique to individuals that can not be transferred to other people. This unique and normalised personality, identity and meaning constructed within the ADF is not exclusively a transactional relationship that can be automatically transferred onto a new employer.

What we tend to see and hear are veterans who are experiencing high levels of distress because they are caught between military and civilian cultures, feeling alienated from family and friends, and experiencing a crisis of identity. This stress is bought about by a multitude of factors, including being exposed to combat or combat related injuries, moral injury because of things they have seen or had to do, and upon transition which delivers ‘a loss of structure’ and the comfort in knowing that everyone has the same values, similar behaviours and ‘we all know the drill.’

This is further compounded by the additional stress bought about by having, in some circumstances, limited financial literacy, which leads to economic stress, chronic debt, family stress and a guilt around not being able to provide, and the potential income shortfalls that come with transitioning to a civilian job that doesn’t necessarily pay you ‘danger money’. 

The military provides our veterans with a web of significance, and it is from within this culture that they understand social norms, have value and a specified purpose and therefore, what constitutes an identity. Although military personnel come from diverse cultural backgrounds, the one thing they ultimately share is assimilation into military culture. One of the primary goals of initial employment training is to socialize recruits by stripping them of their civilian identity and replacing it with a military one.

Why do some struggle with transition. Military training is rooted in the ideal of the warrior, celebrating the group rather than the individual, fostering intimacy based on sameness, and facilitating the creation of loyal teams, where they develop bonds that transcend all others, even the marriage and family bonds we forge in civilian life. Veterans generally hold themselves to a higher standard than civilians, and do not feel they fit into the civilian world. They keep to themselves, join military associations, military facebook pages and groups where they can share community and stories with people who have the same lived experiences. They find themselves caught between two social contexts that offer incompatible cultural narratives leading to a crisis in identity. 

The ADF have been committed to operations in foreign countries for the past 25 years, leaving their families for up to eight months which doesn’t include the time away on course or exercise, or as a young Navy officer told me a few weeks ago, she hasn’t slept in her own bed for more than 6 nights in the last two years.

Not only do we have a veteran’s population that is fatigued, there are many of them burnt out or close to it. Often it is their commitment to service, pride and courage that keeps them going whilst they are in. It is when they leave and don’t have to get up for PT or early morning parade, when they won’t see the faces of their mates for a laugh and a joke to dim the aches and pains and disturbing mental images, and there is no hope of another deployment where they get to do the job they are trained for, that they collapse in a heap – just simply in many cases, bone tired. 

The National Mental Health Commission reported that the incidents of veterans self harm and suicide, mental health, alcohol related problems and in some cases domestic violence and homelessness doubles when a member leaves the military. Do I personally think these people need to be labelled mentally ill, broken, incapacitated and unable to contribute to the community? No I don’t. I think they just need a hand. Like Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick who is seen as the embodiment of the ANZAC spirit spending hours putting his life at risk to retrieve soldiers from the battlefield or the fuzzy wuzzies of Papua New Guinea who lent a shoulder to our wounded or the soldiers who returned to base after a battle only to be bandaged up so they could go back out and help their mates. Our veterans community just need a hand.

This is going to become more prevalent in the year to come. There is a body of work and a plethora of studies that talk about the vicarious effects of being in close community with people suffering any type of trauma or distress. Children of Vietnam Veterans have been reported to have a higher propensity for PTSD and families are reported as suffering secondary traumatization because of their parents or partners service. What hasn’t been discussed at this point is the vicarious effects of working in an organization with a large number of people in this category. So I believe the issue and challenges veterans face are going to grow rather than diminish as our operational demands reduce.

Don't misunderstand me, I’m not saying our veterans are all suffering some kind of mental illness. What I am trying to illustrate actually is how resilient they are. This is what makes them unique, this is what causes them to accuse the ‘civilian population’ of being too worried about 1st world problems. My military colleagues, my soldiers and peers are tough, well trained, committed to their purpose, know what is expected of them and serve with pride. But some of them have no idea how that translates in to a civilian role, they are struggling with working out how what they have done over the course of their time in the ADF translates into a civilian life. So once again, they keep to themselves, join organisations of like minded people, and rely on the DVA to pay their medical bills. But this doesn’t help them integrate into society, to relearn and discover an identity they left behind at the gates of Kapooka or how their life can be meaningful after the ultimate and demanding sacrifices they have made in service to the Nation.

What does 'welfare' support mean in the ESO Constitutional Aims and Objects. Almost ten months ago I delivered the thank you address at the NSW / ACT Department of Veterans Affairs Christmas Party. Although I’m not a polished public speaker, nor do I claim to have the answers to some of the most complex social issues facing the veteran’s community, someone had to speak up about the confusion, the feelings of isolation and abandonment that current and former serving members of the ADF feel when confronted with their greatest fear – needing help. I decided to challenge the representatives of some of the 3,500 ex-service organisations that exist today, and who state their purpose is to support veterans and their families, to honour their constitutionally agreed commitments to the welfare of veterans and their families. I was shaking like a leaf, but I was not going to waste the opportunity. That day I spoke with candour, audacity, courage and a devotion to duty that was representative of our Australian Defence Force forefathers who have and continue to volunteer their service to the nation and to their families who support them, often in silence and never heard.

After I delivered my address and moved through the room, I was in simple terms, deeply disappointed, half the elected representatives in the room didn’t hear a word I said, as they were too busy milling around the service point.  I didn’t want their praise, I didn’t want their admiration, I wanted them to hear the message. The message that day was that our veteran’s community were in distress and we collectively needed to pitch in, work together and do something about it. 

As a current serving, decorated veteran recently said in an ESO forum, ‘we need to leave our egos at the door and work together to solve this problem’. I had to agree, our job is not to promote ourselves, it isn’t about what we as individuals can do, it is about what we can do collectively to ensure our veterans community are served. In the words of General David Patreaus, we as a collective are there to serve our veterans, not compete for them, and no one of us is smarter than all of us together. But the question still remained – what is it that we are ‘serving’ them with!

That brings me to the questions of who are the RSL and RSL & Services Clubs and other ESOs, and what do they have in common with today’s veteran. Not yesterday’s veterans and for the 24 year olds who have already completed two tours, they can’t even relate to the East Timor veteran, because the experiences were different, the people they called mate are not the veteran of 20 years ago. Their mates are the ones they served with. As I’ve already said the veteran look for a like-minded community, one they can relate too.  

There are two things that strike me as relevant for this discussion. Firstly, I asked myself why I didn’t join an RSL or Club until about four years ago? Well I came up with, when I was young I was too busy getting up to mischief, studying, playing sport, travelling and hanging out in the Mess, because in those days a bourbon and coke only cost $2. After I grew up just a little I was in the stage of my life where I was having children so I was too frazzled to head up to the local RSL or Club and I spent most of my time cooking, cleaning or at the park. I didn’t have time or the inclination to volunteer my personal time, nor did I understand the need for the ESOs or the additional welfare requirements of veterans and their families – because at 25 years old I thought the RSL and other ESOs only helped people who had warlike service, people much older than me. But I needed the ex-service community at 25, I needed a support network and community outside of the stone walls of Defence. But there was no pathway, there was nothing within what was being advertised that appealed to me and I didn’t think I deserved it.

The GAP between Wellness and Illness. However, I now have a better understanding of the needs of the veteran’s community, I understand that the Government through Defence and the Department of Veterans Affairs do not provide our veterans community with all of their ‘welfare’ needs. They generally only provide the traditional suite of medical and dental support. This leads to our veterans having to choose between wellness and illness. There is nowhere to land between those very far apart spectrums. And if you do need just a little help you either have to hide it because there is a real fear you’ll lose your place in the ranks or you ask for help and end up on the merry-go-round of the medical system or worse still spending the rest of your life proving your are totally permanently impaired. 

Please enter the ex-service community, local government and businesses. The 3,500 ESOs that exist and the community have been the ones who try to fill the gaps of what is not provided through the traditionally accepted means. So, if we are asking ourselves what do the veterans need? They need these adjunct services, they need the activities and programs that help them succeed in life. These things include financial literacy and budgeting education, they need career coaching that gives them options after the military because only our fallen serve for a lifetime, they need family support for re-engagement with their loved ones and community and they need to be meaningfully engaged. DR Brendon Nelson said yesterday at the announcement of the sponsorship of the Veterans Remount Horsemanship program that it is through service we thrive not through being the recipients of welfare. Our veterans already have a degree of learned helplessness as a consequence of the requirements of service, let’s not propagate that myth, that they are helpless. They simply need a helping hand, a leg up back into the saddle so they may thrive.

What does that mean really? And more importantly what does that mean to the ESO communitiy? So, I can wrap up soon I’ll just get straight to the point – with so many ESOs and well-meaning people out there offering support and services to the veterans it has all become a little confusing. Veterans can’t work out what most of the 3,500 organisations can offer them by way of support and there are too many ESOs competing for their allegiance, usually secured through membership. Some of these organsiations can’t work out or tell you what they offer by way of support beyond ‘welfare’ themselves.

Veterans Community of Practice Network. If you were to ask me what I thought about this conundrum I would say this: You need to have a message, a sales pitch and something to stand for and above all else it needs to be coordinated by professionally paid staff. If you go to a coffee shop you know you’ll get coffee, if you go to a pub you’ll get a beer and if you go to the pool you’re generally there for a swim.

When you ask a veteran to join an RSL, Club or other organisations they wonder why? In some cases there is a closer venue or they go where their mates go or they just hang out at home because it’s cheaper – gone are the days of the cheap meals in messes and other like venues. When you ask them what different ESOs do for them, most people would have no idea. We have to change that, and the only way I believe we can do so is by standing by some key deliverables, and we need to do that as a collective. I ask you, what will be your Legacy? What will the veterans community know you for.

RSL & Services Clubs Veterans Centre Network. For example, if the RSL and RSL & Services Clubs decided to take responsibility for ensuring veterans and their families were financially literate and could budget – that is what they would be known for. If they took responsibility for the career coaching and helping them set up a plan for their future they would be known for ensuring they provided a positive experience preparing veterans for success post discharge. If the RSL and RSL & Services Clubs were known for offering veterans alternative services to help them through what is just a hard patch in their lives with meaningful engagement programs, help with their kid’s education needs and adjunct non-medical services, we would see less veterans needing to claim incapacity and some kind of mental illness which places them on the merry-go-round of pensions. I believe the gap that requires filling is that space between wellness and illness.

What kind of programs am I talking about: There are loads of them out there, some of you are already supporting them, Remount horseman ship program, Kokoda trek, Team Rubicon, Homes for Heroes, The Australian Army Yacht Club, Australian Army Football, Army Band Sydney.

So, what do veterans need? They just need a hand, they need to know what you stand for. What is this welfare piece, what does it look like, and how can our veterans be engaged in community allowing them to continue to serve their nation, to maintain in part the identity that is woven into every fabric of their being.

At the NSW RSL & Services Clubs 16th Annual Conference the CEO Garrie Gibson announced the Veterans Centre Network. If you are the President of an ESO, a veteran or veteran's family and would like more information please contact: Garrie Gibson at P: 61 2 9233 2624 or www.rslservicesclubs.com.au or the author of this article Kelliegh Jackson, 0408 079 385 or [email protected].