Speaker 1: Please be advised the following episode contains references to violence
Speaker 1: and may not be suitable for all listeners. This is
Speaker 1: Vets You Should Know, a podcast from My Heart Radio
Speaker 1: celebrating the many who have selflessly put their lives on
Speaker 1: the line to serve their country and the armed forces.
Speaker 1: Every Veteran's Day, we as a country honor and commemorate
Speaker 1: the people who fight for our freedom and defend our country.
Speaker 1: And in this four part series, you'll hear from these
Speaker 1: individuals as they share their unique experiences in the military
Speaker 1: and the lessons they learned that carried them into their
Speaker 1: new roles in civilian life. In this episode, I speak
Speaker 1: with retired U. S. Navy Chief so in Our Technician,
Speaker 1: Jenny Brett. Jenny served in the Navy for twenty years,
Speaker 1: but fourteen months into her service, Jenny was sexually assaulted.
Speaker 1: Rather than let this deter her, she used these events
Speaker 1: to fuel her. She vowed to become an ally for
Speaker 1: those who would find themselves in similar situations. She wanted
Speaker 1: other women and lgbt Q members of the name Be
Speaker 1: to know that they had someone on their side. Today,
Speaker 1: Jenny works tirelessly to research and identify safe spaces for
Speaker 1: women and LGBTQ veterans. Hi Jenny, Hi, Well, I'm super
Speaker 1: happy to have you here, and let's start from the beginning.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to where you grew up.
Speaker 1: You know, what was it like at home. I grew
Speaker 1: up in northeastern the United States. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a little town called North Attleborough, Massachusetts. UM. It was
Speaker 1: by all accounts idyllic. I am from a middle class,
Speaker 1: very white family in a middle class, very white town.
Speaker 1: Everybody had a quarter acre lawn, and everybody's lawn was
Speaker 1: always done really well, and everybody had nice cars in
Speaker 1: the garage. And it was a very upper middle class upbringing.
Speaker 1: My parents were married until I was out of the house,
Speaker 1: and I went to a great high school and I
Speaker 1: went to call I was actually seventeen when I graduated
Speaker 1: high school, and I went to college very briefly, and
Speaker 1: I I knew leaving high school that college was not
Speaker 1: going to be for me. I just wasn't ready for
Speaker 1: college yet, and so I waited long enough till I
Speaker 1: turned eighteen, UM, and then immediately enlisted in the military.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I knew there was something
Speaker 1: else besides just my little hometown in Massachusetts, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to get at it, but I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to do it except to join the military. It was
Speaker 1: kind of like my version of joining the circus. At
Speaker 1: that point in the late nineties, they were heavily recruiting women,
Speaker 1: um and I knew that. I knew. That's why one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I wanted to enlist was Tailhook
Speaker 1: was still very much sort of a big deal. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know what Tailhook is, or if
Speaker 1: anyone knows the Tailhook is anymore, because it happened such
Speaker 1: a long time ago. But in the late nineties mid nineties,
Speaker 1: there was a military convention called the Tailhook Association, and
Speaker 1: they got together and there was some really inappropriate gender
Speaker 1: based violence, since some sexual harassment, and there were um
Speaker 1: sex workers hired to work for this organization, and just
Speaker 1: a whole lot of really inappropriate behavior. It made the news.
Speaker 1: A woman blew the whistle on it. Her name is
Speaker 1: Pola Cogglin. She's amazing. She still speaks about military sexual violence.
Speaker 1: And the Navy's answer at the time, and all the
Speaker 1: Joint chiefs of Staff decided we should put more women
Speaker 1: in the military, and so women were going to be
Speaker 1: allowed to be in ratings where they weren't allowed to
Speaker 1: be in before, so there were more opportunities opening up
Speaker 1: for women. Talk about your first year in the military
Speaker 1: and and how different that was for you. Wow. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm from my very white, middle class
Speaker 1: town in Massachusetts and boot camp was a huge eye
Speaker 1: opener for me. I mean, I was eighteen and had
Speaker 1: never been hungry in my life, and I had always
Speaker 1: had medical care. Um the the idea that someone had
Speaker 1: signed away the rights to their child to their parents
Speaker 1: in order to do this to get medical care because
Speaker 1: they weren't able to feed their kids was shocking to me.
Speaker 1: Like to me, it was almost kind of a diversion
Speaker 1: or like an escape, but to some people it was.
Speaker 1: It was a life change. It was a a necessary
Speaker 1: decision in order to survive it. Sounds like your experience
Speaker 1: in the Navy gave you a different perspective of the
Speaker 1: world and some of the different struggles that people face
Speaker 1: every day. It definitely opened my eyes to experiences like that. Um. So,
Speaker 1: my best friend is still in the military. She is
Speaker 1: a whole technician, she's a welder, she's an amazing little bulldog.
Speaker 1: She is the coolest chick I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 1: But her partner. His parents were refugees from the Cahmer
Speaker 1: rouge of Mong descent. They a hill tribe that lived
Speaker 1: in the areas of Laos and Thailand and Cambodia. He
Speaker 1: comes from a very large family. His parents weren't very
Speaker 1: you know, well educated. They came here in the seventies
Speaker 1: with virtually nothing. He became a citizen through the refugee process.
Speaker 1: But for him it was definitely a way to pay
Speaker 1: back what the US gave him. I mean, it gave
Speaker 1: his family safety where he didn't. And I'm like tearing
Speaker 1: up right now because it's a concept that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us don't understand. My parents did not
Speaker 1: escape violence through the literal jungle carrying me to a
Speaker 1: refugee camp, but that was that was his experience, and
Speaker 1: so for him it was a payback thing. And then
Speaker 1: my friend grew up in South Texas. She actually grew
Speaker 1: up just outside of San Antonio where I am now
Speaker 1: um and her family was military. She was homeschooled for
Speaker 1: most of her schooling career, and her family was very,
Speaker 1: very religious. But her dad was in the Air Force
Speaker 1: and the Army both, and for her it was just
Speaker 1: there was two things. It was their calling, it was
Speaker 1: just what their family did. And two it was they
Speaker 1: didn't have any money for college or you know, once
Speaker 1: you turn eighteen, that's that's what you do. You you
Speaker 1: leave and you you make your own way. And for her,
Speaker 1: making her own way through the military was, you know,
Speaker 1: the best option. Whereas for me, I could have gone
Speaker 1: to college, but I would have had to do what
Speaker 1: my parents wanted me to do, and I had to
Speaker 1: go to the school that they wanted me to go to.
Speaker 1: And I was kind of rebelling just by saying, I'm
Speaker 1: not doing any of those things. I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: out on my own at eighteen. And I had to
Speaker 1: find a job and a place to live and food,
Speaker 1: and the Navy was like, hey, we have all of
Speaker 1: those things. Yeah, very three, very different experiences within you know,
Speaker 1: two of my friends and myself, many of us have
Speaker 1: seen so in our technology depicts in the films or TV.
Speaker 1: But Jenny is the real deal and she has a
Speaker 1: skill set. If you have, so, Jenny, tell me about
Speaker 1: what a naval sonar technician does and what those responsibilities are.
Speaker 1: So we are underwater, sub hunters. We're basically the ship's
Speaker 1: last defense against a submarine threat. There's two kinds of
Speaker 1: so our technicians, there's submarine or on our technicians and
Speaker 1: their surface ships on our technicians. Submariners use sonar to navigate.
Speaker 1: It's how they survive, so for them, sonar is a
Speaker 1: much um plays a much more important role. Sonar in
Speaker 1: the Cold War was incredibly important. Now we work in
Speaker 1: a multi unit way, so we work in conjunction with
Speaker 1: aircraft and with helicopters, and we listen for subs, look
Speaker 1: for subs. If need be, we can neutralize a sub threat.
Speaker 1: The real plan is if we find one and we
Speaker 1: think it's hostile, to run away and hope we managed
Speaker 1: to get away into time. If you're a surface ship,
Speaker 1: you don't want to go toe to toe with the
Speaker 1: submarine because they can get much closer to you than
Speaker 1: you can to them before you find out. I worked
Speaker 1: on a system that is underwater fire control. So underwater
Speaker 1: fire control is the torpedo system on board. So I
Speaker 1: was sitting at the console that actually fired torpedoes, and
Speaker 1: so they would send over a hostile contact and you
Speaker 1: line up the ship in the right direction with the
Speaker 1: submarine and so that your torpedo could actually hit it.
Speaker 1: And finding a submarine is very very slow, neutralizing a
Speaker 1: sub threat is very very quick. I mean, no one
Speaker 1: has done that in the history of the United States
Speaker 1: naval warfare in a very long time, and hopefully no
Speaker 1: one ever has to again. But in practice, that was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It's two hours of quietly sneaking
Speaker 1: around in the water looking for a submarine and then
Speaker 1: five minutes of the most intense you know, everybody's calling
Speaker 1: things back and forth. You were a headset with two
Speaker 1: different audio channels in it, so there's new five people
Speaker 1: in each year talking back and forth, and everyone standing
Speaker 1: behind your chair, like the captain is standing right behind
Speaker 1: you and like literally breathing on your neck, and no
Speaker 1: one knows what your screen says. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: the matrix. Everything looks kind of weird, but I understand
Speaker 1: what it says. And the guys and sonar are the
Speaker 1: same way. People going to sonar and look and they're like,
Speaker 1: what is that? It's just lines, but yeah, it's it
Speaker 1: was pretty intense. Um. I really did enjoy it because
Speaker 1: it's it makes you feel really important, like when when
Speaker 1: you're sort of the last hope. Sonar is very interesting.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun. It's it's very secret, squirrel.
Speaker 1: You know, the vast majority of it is classified information.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to know sort of what together parts
Speaker 1: of the world can do in terms of their submarine
Speaker 1: forces and their their naval sonar systems, and it's it's
Speaker 1: really fun to work with other countries. Um, we worked
Speaker 1: a lot with the Canadians, we were at the Australians,
Speaker 1: we work at the Japanese. We've worked with lots and
Speaker 1: lots of other Allied countries doing submarine stuff. So we
Speaker 1: work with their aircraft, we work with their helicopters and
Speaker 1: their their teams in their helicopter and their aircraft. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really interesting. I know when you were in
Speaker 1: the name of you doubt what sexual assault? Uh, do
Speaker 1: you feel like that's somewhat common or with with women
Speaker 1: of the military at least having to hear or be
Speaker 1: exposed to it. I think it's incredibly common. I think
Speaker 1: it's so common that a lot of women don't recognize it.
Speaker 1: I think it's accepted. There's a lot of just language
Speaker 1: and small actions. Sometimes people call the micro aggressions. I'm
Speaker 1: not really a fan of the term micro aggression. I
Speaker 1: think it's just an aggression, but just the language and
Speaker 1: the way that the military operates in general tends to
Speaker 1: be not very welcome ming two people who are not
Speaker 1: the norm. So yeah, I think I think it's very,
Speaker 1: very common. So I was sexually assaulted at nineteen. I
Speaker 1: was in my initial training school and the guy who
Speaker 1: assaulted me was older, he was a marine, he was married,
Speaker 1: and so I trusted him, and there were a lot
Speaker 1: of red flags. His language was inappropriate, but there were
Speaker 1: no women in my chain of command. They were all men,
Speaker 1: and I didn't have anyone to model appropriate behavior for me.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any women who could tell me that, hey,
Speaker 1: that's not okay and that's probably not safe. It was
Speaker 1: my first time out of my little hometown. So when
Speaker 1: I was sexually assaulted, he went through the n JP process.
Speaker 1: It was not to my satisfaction. Um he was not
Speaker 1: held accountable for his actions, and in fact, I was
Speaker 1: held accountable for his actions. I realized that one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that it went so badly for me was
Speaker 1: that there was no one there to advise me. There
Speaker 1: was no one to commiserate with me. And there was
Speaker 1: no one to have warned me that it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be okay. Oftentimes women who report sexual assault in
Speaker 1: the military are given the option in their service early,
Speaker 1: but rather than leave, Jenny set our sides on becoming
Speaker 1: an ally for others and a champion for fairness. After
Speaker 1: the fact, I was taught this is normal, this is
Speaker 1: what happens, and I'm sorry this happened to you, but
Speaker 1: expect it from now on. And I didn't really know
Speaker 1: what to do with that anger, and so I decided
Speaker 1: to channel it into my work. There were newer girls
Speaker 1: on base, and so they were, you know, men talking
Speaker 1: about the newer girls, and and I thought, you know what,
Speaker 1: I didn't have anybody there for me, So I'm going
Speaker 1: to be a support system for someone else behind me.
Speaker 1: And I told myself, if I can change one person's
Speaker 1: experience for the better, if I can stop what happened
Speaker 1: to me from happening to one person, then I can sleep.
Speaker 1: I made changes, and I intercepted talk gone wrong and
Speaker 1: and just acted as a support system to as many
Speaker 1: people as I could. And so every time I felt
Speaker 1: like I had done something for someone that hadn't been
Speaker 1: done for me, I felt a little bit better about it,
Speaker 1: and then I got a little bit more serious about
Speaker 1: trying to deliberately make that effort. My second enlistment was
Speaker 1: so about seven years. I really saw that as my job.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I'm going to stay
Speaker 1: just to do this. I'm gonna do my job, But
Speaker 1: in my head, my goal was to be the person
Speaker 1: that I needed when nobody was there for me. How
Speaker 1: would you mentor other women within the service who experienced
Speaker 1: what you did UM during the time that you enlisted.
Speaker 1: I would first of all, let them know that they
Speaker 1: are not the only one experiencing it. I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of us within this culture. So often the
Speaker 1: longer you stay in, the fewer of you there are.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times I was the only woman
Speaker 1: in my job field, I was the only woman in
Speaker 1: a room a lot. One case, I was the only
Speaker 1: woman of my rank on my ship UM, and that's
Speaker 1: a very very lonely place to be. So I would
Speaker 1: recommend that they seek each other out and find each
Speaker 1: other and support each other, even across ranks and across
Speaker 1: job fields and across departments and divisions. Because the way
Speaker 1: that it's the easiest to fail is when you're doing
Speaker 1: it alone, and the more support you have the better.
Speaker 1: And then it's not just women who support us, it's
Speaker 1: also men. And so I think more than mentoring the
Speaker 1: women who I think are on the right track, honestly,
Speaker 1: I would start with men and I would let them
Speaker 1: know what women need from them in order to succeed.
Speaker 1: You retired from the Navy after twenty years. You went
Speaker 1: back to school in Texas. Right, that's a big move. Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1: Um So. I am a grad student at the University
Speaker 1: of Texas, San Antonio, and I am a cultural anthropologist
Speaker 1: who studies the lasting impact of being in a military
Speaker 1: environment on women and LGBTQ veterans um including transgender people
Speaker 1: and gender nonconforming and gender non binary. I intend to
Speaker 1: do research on wellness and well being and feelings of belonging,
Speaker 1: looking at post military communities that veterans join up with.
Speaker 1: Many women veterans do not feel comfortable in sort of
Speaker 1: the traditional we call the Big Six Veterans organizations like
Speaker 1: the Disabled American Veterans or like Vietnam Veterans of America,
Speaker 1: the American Legion, or Veterans of Foreign Wars VFW. A
Speaker 1: lot of those places are not necessarily welcoming to women,
Speaker 1: to LGBTQ folks, and so a lot of women who
Speaker 1: have felt uncomfortable get out of the military. A lot
Speaker 1: of us sort of test out those places. We'll go
Speaker 1: to the v A, you know, to get our care,
Speaker 1: and feel uncomfortable with the v A, we go to
Speaker 1: the VFW maybe, or we go to the legion and
Speaker 1: we try and fit in in a couple of different places.
Speaker 1: The problem is that a lot of us were not
Speaker 1: comfortable within the military environment to begin with. It is
Speaker 1: a very masculine environment. It's an intentionally masculine environment, and
Speaker 1: a lot of us felt the need to perform an
Speaker 1: excess of masculinity while we were in the military, and
Speaker 1: we got out and sort of readjusted and fell back
Speaker 1: into our lives, and so that environment is no longer
Speaker 1: comfortable for us, and so in order to go into
Speaker 1: those places, we kind of have to revert back to
Speaker 1: our military selves, which are not comfortable. And a lot
Speaker 1: of those places are places where especially older veterans, especially
Speaker 1: the older male veterans go in order to revisit those
Speaker 1: feelings of masculinity and that comfortability with their veteran personas
Speaker 1: whereas we we want the connection, and we want the community,
Speaker 1: and we want people who understand what it's like to
Speaker 1: be us, but we don't want to have to perform
Speaker 1: this veteran role, this sort of hero role that people expect.
Speaker 1: I just want to be me and tell my stories
Speaker 1: and talk to people who understand what I've been through
Speaker 1: and what my experiences without having to overtly perform some role.
Speaker 1: So my research is based in that I'm hoping to
Speaker 1: find organizations where women veterans do feel comfortable and lgbt
Speaker 1: Q veterans feel like they can be their whole selves
Speaker 1: and not have to hide part of themselves or have
Speaker 1: to perform in a certain way, and find out what
Speaker 1: makes those organizations so welcoming. So far, I've only really
Speaker 1: experienced one organization that I think is doing incredibly well,
Speaker 1: and that's Focused Forward Fellowship, which is a fellowship for
Speaker 1: student women veterans. They're all ages that come from every conflict,
Speaker 1: they've served any amount of time. Some of them are
Speaker 1: currently active duty. They're serving in the National Guard. Interestingly
Speaker 1: for me, within that organization, it's only for women identifying
Speaker 1: veterans and there are no male participants in any form
Speaker 1: for the entire higher residential portion of the fellowship. So
Speaker 1: women veterans apply, they go to Indiana, which is that
Speaker 1: it's at Purdue University, and they're there for seventy two
Speaker 1: hours for the residential portion, and then the rest of
Speaker 1: the annual fellowship is conducted online and zoom groups like this.
Speaker 1: There are no men in a room with you at
Speaker 1: any point for seventy two hours, and it's incredibly healing
Speaker 1: to be able to feel safe, I think for the
Speaker 1: women who take part, and it's incredibly healing to not
Speaker 1: have to start at a baseline of explaining performative gender
Speaker 1: behavior or why some of the talk that we experienced
Speaker 1: was difficult, or how hard it is to not see representation.
Speaker 1: In a lot of cases, women veterans are very isolated,
Speaker 1: and it's very very difficult because you don't have any
Speaker 1: support systems, You don't have anyone to turn to. And
Speaker 1: most of us sort of grow up in the Navy
Speaker 1: being independent and being fiercely independent, and we've build these
Speaker 1: very thick brick walls of self defense, and it's amazing
Speaker 1: you can almost physically see those walls coming down with
Speaker 1: these women in a room full of their sisters and
Speaker 1: I want to know what the mechanism is that makes
Speaker 1: that happen. Because Focus Forward Fellowship is one fellowship. It
Speaker 1: takes place once a year with twenty women. But if
Speaker 1: I could figure out what the tiny pieces that makes
Speaker 1: that possible and tell everyone else so that we can
Speaker 1: all have that experience, women, men, people who are lgbt Q,
Speaker 1: gender non conforming, abled, disabled, everyone deserves to feel like
Speaker 1: those women feel for that seventy two hours. I just
Speaker 1: need to figure out what it is what I need
Speaker 1: to distill that down to a dissertation. So what is
Speaker 1: your goal by studying this? Meaning what action do you
Speaker 1: hope to do? I would really love to be a professor.
Speaker 1: I love academia. I think academia is an incredible way
Speaker 1: to reach people sort before they feel like they're they've
Speaker 1: completed their whole selves. I feel like college is really
Speaker 1: a place where people see themselves as developing humans. They
Speaker 1: just want change and they want to take on a
Speaker 1: way to be better. And I think being a professor
Speaker 1: is a really incredible opportunity to reach people that want
Speaker 1: that change. I'm using my experience as a woman veteran
Speaker 1: because that is my closest experience with dealing with situations
Speaker 1: of unequal powers structures. Hopefully, whatever information I find and
Speaker 1: whatever information I managed to distill out of these organizations
Speaker 1: will be useful within any organization that has unequal power structures,
Speaker 1: and we will will be useful to any person who
Speaker 1: finds that they have spent time in a unequal power structure.
Speaker 1: They felt like they had to form in a certain
Speaker 1: way within an organization, and now they're struggling to sort
Speaker 1: of readapt to a different life. I'm hoping that this
Speaker 1: transcends the veteran experience into just people experience. It seems
Speaker 1: like there might also be opportunity to influence policy change
Speaker 1: in academia right absolutely, so. I hope to be able
Speaker 1: to inform policymakers that are creating policies for the military,
Speaker 1: influencing post veteran service organizations, places like Disabled Veterans of
Speaker 1: America and Vietnam Veterans of America, UM, the American Legion,
Speaker 1: those places that are kind of recognized as veterans, sort
Speaker 1: of helping organizations about how their practices impact women and
Speaker 1: LGBTQ veterans and how they could better serve us as
Speaker 1: a community. I know inclusivity is very important to you.
Speaker 1: How would you like the military to be more inclusive.
Speaker 1: I think the very first thing the military can do
Speaker 1: is to change the language that we use. Military folks
Speaker 1: love to use the words male and female when describing people. UM.
Speaker 1: I think it is very reductive. It reduces people to
Speaker 1: their biological capability, and it assumes a binary that just
Speaker 1: doesn't exist. Biology has told us for years and years
Speaker 1: scientists know. Um. I think everyone knows at this point
Speaker 1: that male and female are definitely on a spectrum and
Speaker 1: people are just not one or the other. Um. In
Speaker 1: some cases they're both. In some cases there neither. And
Speaker 1: I think the use of that language puts the military
Speaker 1: on the wrong foot and and starts in boot camp
Speaker 1: being very exclusive and very binary. You have such an
Speaker 1: interesting story, you know, what would you take from it
Speaker 1: to to share with other women who are just thinking
Speaker 1: about entering the military. You know they're at the emfancy
Speaker 1: stages of their process. I definitely think it's an increable
Speaker 1: jumping off point for any career. The benefits are amazing.
Speaker 1: I would not be able to be in this profession
Speaker 1: now and doing the work that I do if I
Speaker 1: hadn't been in the military and retired. The paycheck allows
Speaker 1: me to be an academics. Academia is not a job
Speaker 1: that pays well, so being able to be an academic
Speaker 1: um is definitely because of my military career and also
Speaker 1: my post nine g I bill paid for my undergraduate career,
Speaker 1: so that was helpful. And I think if you take
Speaker 1: the lessons that we learned, just the very basic lessons,
Speaker 1: the soft skills that being on time, learning how to organize,
Speaker 1: learning how to network, I'm a handier than I expected
Speaker 1: them to come in my post military profession, So I
Speaker 1: would absolutely recommend it. But I would definitely recommend that
Speaker 1: women look immediately for ment, worship and for a network
Speaker 1: of them themselves and of of allies while they're doing
Speaker 1: whatever job they're doing in the military. Do you think
Speaker 1: change is possible in the Navy. I do think it's possible.
Speaker 1: I think that there are some amazing people working to
Speaker 1: change things right now. Like I said, I think that
Speaker 1: the women who are still in the military right now
Speaker 1: are making change, and I think they have the resources
Speaker 1: that I didn't have to reach out beyond the military
Speaker 1: and reach out to people who are making policy changes.
Speaker 1: There are some amazing people working within policy, working for
Speaker 1: veterans organizations and working with Congressmen and working with representatives
Speaker 1: to make change. The I Am Venesseguian Act is being
Speaker 1: written and being pushed, and there are some amazing women
Speaker 1: working on that, both women involved with some of the
Speaker 1: organizations that that I'm researching, and women who are who
Speaker 1: are policymakers, women who are on on boards within the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives and in the Senate. So I think
Speaker 1: we are absolutely at the crest of a big wave.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of how long does this wave
Speaker 1: roll before it really crashes down and change is made.
Speaker 1: I think we're making huge progress, but I think there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of progress to continue to be made.
Speaker 1: And I don't think even once we managed to make progress,
Speaker 1: I think we're going to find that there's more to
Speaker 1: still be made. I really appreciate the time and you know,
Speaker 1: thank you for spending it with me and as we are.
Speaker 1: You know, in the Veterans Day and out of Veteran's Day,
Speaker 1: if you get a bunch of a normal folks like
Speaker 1: myself who are like, what can I do? Like, what's
Speaker 1: something easy people can do to celebrate Veteran's Day? Wow, Um,
Speaker 1: there's so many organizations that are smaller organizations, that are
Speaker 1: local organizations that our help veterans that are not you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the big six veteran service organizations. There's probably
Speaker 1: one in your hometown. Those little organizations are really vital
Speaker 1: for connecting veterans as communities. They do things like, you know,
Speaker 1: providing service dogs, which I know you're familiar with. They
Speaker 1: do things like therapeutic programming. So if you can find
Speaker 1: a smaller organization in your hometown and find out what
Speaker 1: they need. Maybe they just need money, maybe they need
Speaker 1: volunteer time, maybe they need you to phone bank. But um,
Speaker 1: if you could just spend one hour looking for a
Speaker 1: smaller organization and helping them out, that would mean the
Speaker 1: world to at least one veteran. My final question, you know,
Speaker 1: what lessons have you taken from the military that you've
Speaker 1: applied to your work now as a grad student, researcher
Speaker 1: um or into your civilian life. I really learned that
Speaker 1: there are so many different stories. Everyone has a different experience,
Speaker 1: No one has a life like mine. And so in
Speaker 1: hearing those stories, and in telling those stories, and in
Speaker 1: giving people space to tell their own story, we learned
Speaker 1: so much about each other. And I think we all
Speaker 1: feel so much more connected and more of a community
Speaker 1: if we just give ourselves that lesson and that gift
Speaker 1: of listening. So I think that's what I've learned, is
Speaker 1: to ask people what their story is and and to
Speaker 1: ask them to share their experience with me, because I
Speaker 1: can learn from them and they can learn from me.
Speaker 1: Check out a website j and I Brett dot com,
Speaker 1: Jenny Brett dot com, or Jenny Rider on Twitter at
Speaker 1: j e n I writer. Really appreciate the time. Thank
Speaker 1: you for sharing your story, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are going to take a lot from this,
Speaker 1: so so thank you very much. Thank you, Bob, You's
Speaker 1: so nice to be here. I want to thank Jenny
Speaker 1: for sharing your story and being a support system for
Speaker 1: so many veterans. Change is possible, especially when there are
Speaker 1: people like her working to create a fair and just
Speaker 1: system for everyone. To find out more about the Focused
Speaker 1: Forward Fellowship and similar veteran resources, check out the list
Speaker 1: in our show notes. Thanks for listening to Bets you
Speaker 1: should know. Check out our other episodes from more great
Speaker 1: stories from inspiring vets who continue to work selflessly and
Speaker 1: tirelessly in civilian life to make positive change. If you
Speaker 1: like what you heard, please rate and review the podcast.
Speaker 1: We want to hear from you and don't forget to
Speaker 1: subscribe for free or follow the show on the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Vets You Should Know is a special four
Speaker 1: part series podcast from I Heart Radio hosted by me
Speaker 1: Bobby Bones. Our show has written and produced by Molly Sosha,
Speaker 1: Andy Kelly Ethan fix Cell in partnership with Haley Ericson
Speaker 1: and Garrett Shannon of Banter, Edit, sound design and mixed
Speaker 1: by Matt Stillo and my personal producer and hero is
Speaker 1: Mike d two