The movie The Hurt Locker is a little controversial in the EOD community. At a minimum, it did bring awareness to the quiet professionals of the EOD community. There's a scene in the movie that stands out regardless. He's standing in a grocery store in front of a wall of cereal. You can hear the sounds of the store around him, and somehow the silence is still deafening. He's standing there and knows exactly what to do with his hands in a bomb suit and is suddenly so unsure what to do with them in a grocery aisle. What do you do with all that training and intensity on an ordinary Tuesday? And who do you call when the people who would understand are scattered all over the country?
I want to say thank you to everyone who made the choice to serve. Leaving home, going through training, joining a unit, and spending time away from the people you love all come at a cost. I think Veterans Day this year comes at a good time for us. We could use a reminder of who we are as a country and what it has taken to get here. The threats we see today aren't new. Maybe we are becoming more aware. But they aren't new. When threats rise, we lean on the people who already said yes.
We're a nation forged in the fight for freedom and independence. Some of the stories that define us are about people who answered when they were called. Plenty of their stories never got told. Our nation's finest moments are carried on the backs of our veterans.
We ask a lot of people in uniform, in wartime and in peace. We ask them to defend us when the job calls for it and to step forward and lead when it's their turn. We count on their love of country to hold up on the days when the cost of serving is personal and the reasons for doing it can feel a long way from home.
Then they take off the uniform, and we have a whole new set of things to ask of them. We have high expectations of our veterans on the civilian side. When I went from the Air Force bomb squad to business, I had to learn to lead all over again in some ways. In EOD, there was a structure I understood, and on the best teams, everybody knew why we were there and what we owed each other. I felt a part of something deep into my soul. In business, I had to get comfortable with a different kind of conversation. We had customers to take care of and people whose livelihoods depended on us getting it right. I'm super fortunate today to be in government contracting, and over the years I've learned that the military/industry partnership is part of the mission.
In the civilian world, some people want every bit of responsibility you'll give them. Some want to come to work, do a good job, get paid, and get home to their families. I had to learn to lead both. If I needed more from someone, I had to be able to explain what I was asking for and why it mattered. That's pretty clear in the military. I also had to understand that the life somebody goes home to at the end of the day may be the whole reason they work as hard as they do. The freedom to build that life is part of what we asked people in uniform to defend in the first place.
We ask a lot of our veterans far beyond the battlefield. We rely on them to be the backbone of our great nation. To protect and defend. To lead and sacrifice. And I just don't think it ends when you separate.
If you've made that transition, reach back and tell somebody what took you longer to learn than you expected. If a veteran on your team is figuring out how decisions get made or how to put their experience to work, spend some time with them. Give them a real assignment and help them understand what success looks like. And if they tell you they miss the people they served with, or that it's been harder than they expected to find a sense of purpose again, give them room to say it. Keep trusting them with the work the next morning.
And if somebody you served with came to mind while you were reading this, call them. It can be as simple as, "I was thinking about you today. How are you doing?" Don’t let them suffer in silence. They might. I did. So it’s a good time for a buddy check. Give yourself enough time to hear the answer.