Evening Edition: Helping Veterans Transition Back To Civilian Life
20:16 Share

Talk to your specialist about Botox Cosmetic. On about your line of toxin A. Because Botox Cosmetic Day is back on November 20th. For one day only, buy one $50 gift card, get one free. While supplies last. It gets better because it's not just one day of celebration, but the whole month of November. Refer a friend to Ali and you'll both get $50 off a Botox Cosmetic treatment. Plus, if you register and get treated during November 1st to 30th, you have a free gift card.

I'm Ainsley Earhart. I'm Brett Baer. I'm Katie Pavlich. And this is the Fox News Rundown.

Monday, November 11th, 2024. I'm Tonya J. Powers. It's Veterans Day, and we're honoring those who have so bravely served America. But we're also honoring those who have served America.

But we're also highlighting the sometimes difficult challenges of returning to civilian life for our proud men and women. We train for a mission. We train for a purpose and a cause. In the military, we do this every day. Why would you not train to get out of the military? And I think it's that fundamental understanding that you have to prepare for this. You have to get out to reduce that stress. Because at some point in time, they are going to go through some sort of stress during this transition. This is the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition.

Listen to the all-new Brett Baer podcast featuring Common Ground. In-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Baer favorites like his all-star panel and much more. Available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Boot camps, field manuals, weeks of expert training and high-tech gear are all there to help prepare the newest men and women of the U.S. military to be ready for their service to our country. But what about the often difficult task of being prepared to leave military service and return to a civilian lifestyle? Where is the help there?

According to a report published by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, an average of more than 22 veterans die by suicide per day, a number no one wants to be a reality. A new book is set to be released that seeks to give veterans strategies and resources to successfully transition out of the military and back to their lives at home. This was a project that Alex and I started five years ago. We were working at the same private equity shop.

And I had helped Alex's son transition from W&L to the Naval Academy. And as a thank you, he wanted to kind of help me understand the debt credit markets a little bit better. We're speaking with Lieutenant Rob Sarver, a U.S. Navy SEAL, and Alex Ginzier, co-authors of Warrior to Civilian, the field manual for the hero's journey. It's their guide for soldiers to help ease the transition back to their civilian lives. He set up weekly calls. Those weekly calls went well past schedule.

just learning about the financial markets. And Soon turned very personal with, how did I transition out? How did I deal with this? Alex Soon shared his own personal tragedies.

And Alex is the one, to his credit, that took a step back and realized the universal themes really in humanity that we both experienced from being in the military and combat to the civilian world, that there's success and failures leave clues. There's tragedies. There's major life transitions. So Alex recognized those themes. And we set off on this journey five years ago to write the most practical novel or book for veterans transitioning.

Yeah, from my end, that captures it perfectly. From my end on a very personal level, when my older son joined the military, I was very moved. I had remembered that I had wanted to serve at a few points in my life that just didn't end up happening. And so I didn't have the honor of serving. But his calling to serve was

It also made me think beyond that inspiration that when he gets out in 20 or 30 years in the likely event that I'm not around, I'd want him to have some kind of a guide. So naively, I thought that would be a great 20-page memo that I would impose on Rob to write with me and then this turned into a much bigger project. We started speaking to veterans and spouses and the spouse element is very important. We come back to in a moment.

And we began to see that there were some of these fundamental universal themes that Rob referred to. And we looked at the universe of books about veterans, by veterans.

And we saw a gap. We saw a gap in terms of the kind of manual or complete guide that didn't exist. And so we began to think about how to do that, and that began this five-year journey. Your 20-page pamphlet turned into –

Well, you know, and this is something that is very necessary because I don't know how many stories we've done about the transition, you know, from military service member to veteran to getting back into, you know, civilian workplace, civilian work life, that kind of stuff. What did you find when you first started doing research for this book? I'm assuming you talked to all kinds of people. What did you start hearing that really resonated with you personally?

As far as like how it led you in what direction that you went in for this? Through the hundreds of interviews, we found that everybody expressed a common theme and they all experienced stress. They all experienced hardship. This transition is not easy. In fact, Alex and I, we write about a framework, The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell. And to apply that, but really in applying that, we really wanted folks to understand that coming out of this crisis,

As the journey began from the known world, they go to this unknown universe of joining the military that when they come back out of that, that they're really – they understand the power of choice is theirs again. Yeah. I mean Rob's hit on the most important points. I think from a level of a little more detail, what we saw was I would say several recurring points and themes.

Veterans and spouses were not warned that leaving the military posed this kind of a challenge. We began to see that without seeming like it's dramatic, changing your life, going through this kind of a fundamental life transition was for many somewhat like stepping off a cliff in the way Rob discussed, mentioned, from your known world where you have become comfortable to a very unknown world.

It's in some ways in terms of the soul and abyss. It's a whole new world and there were some very insightful comments about that we got from veterans, two in particular. One from Tom Satterly who has had a remarkable life story and runs the All Secure Foundation. I know as a friend of Fox in a very powerful way where he said –

The question he sometimes asks veterans is, so you're surprised by how tough this is. What have you done to train for this transition? That's a very important question. We use that to create a book that was very practical in giving advice about preparing and each of the phases along the way. Another inspiration was from

Kurt Cronin, who's a friend of ours and a former teammate of Rob's, where he said, make no mistake that the challenges of this transition to civilian life, this terrain is no less challenging than that of when you were in service. It's just very different. And so we had to learn how to focus on each of the steps of that transition and how to make it practical and

We built the book up from stories of veterans in each of these different phases and we brought in what we believe to be the country's best experts about every topic. So all these different topics, both healing, the practical job aspects,

the concept of how to refine purpose in your life, what it means to be a civilian warrior. What do these things mean for the parallel profound transition for spouses? So we brought in experts that supplemented the insights and learning. We had been gleaming from veterans and their spouses. And that's really, I would say, the sub-themes that support Rob's major points. Let's talk a second about the role of a spouse because you guys have mentioned this a couple of times. What...

I know you said that normally service members and their spouses aren't really prepared for this kind of stuff. What is the thing you would like to see change about that? How would you like for them to be more prepared than folks have been at this point? And what is the role of a spouse? How can a spouse help support that service member who is going through this?

I think it's incredibly important that once the decision is made to transition out of the military, whether being retiring or just getting out, they need to sit down and have a conversation. They need to be on the same page because the spouse or the significant other made just as significant a sacrifice while that veteran was serving, while they were in active duty. So they're going to go through the same issues that the veteran did, the loss of identity, loss of community, loss

loss of friends. And they're going to have to think about where are we going to move? What region? What function am I going to serve out in the job industry? Where are we going to live? What schools do we go to? These are all things that they need to decide on. So I would say the number one thing is to sit down and have that self-realization as a couple and start having those conversations. Yeah, I think that's all of it. Don't take for granted

And we say this in a way of great humility because I think of Rob's and my realization of our own challenges that we have sought to overcome to become better. But don't take for granted that this is easy. And don't take for granted that because your military spouse is coming home, so to speak, that everything is going to be easy and it's what you've been waiting for. These are real – these are things that can be accomplished.

And I think our book is one important guide. Our book is, by the way, the only book that has an extensive chapter dedicated to spouses and family members. And we hope that it is of some use to folks. If I could add one thing, the spouse and the family, they've been along for this journey with the veteran, and they need to also control the narrative for the family in making this decision.

We've been speaking with Lieutenant Rob Sarver, U.S. Navy SEAL, and Alex Genzier, co-authors of a new book, Warrior to Civilian, the field manual for the hero's journey, their guide for soldiers to help ease the transition back to their civilian lives. Should the government be doing this? Is this something that the military should spend more time on or more resources on this transition period?

It's a very important question. Look, we love our country. We are devoted and love our government. But this task is too big for any government. Let's give you a couple stats that prove that. Today, there's 22 million veterans alive, more than ever in our country's history, with 15 million spouses and family members. Every year, there's 200,000 to 250,000 getting out

The statistics that are troubling like suicide rates, depression, substance abuse and other things are very real. That is not representative of every veteran. It's representative of the degree of the problem of transition. One thing to be clear about is we are not saying veterans as a group are somehow troubled. It's the opposite. Veterans are our inspiration in this country.

I think that this challenge of helping veterans in the transition is simply too big. And so the question is, OK, well, whose job is it? And the job is ours. It's yours. It's what we're doing on this show. It's the service and sense of commitment to veterans that drove our book. It's up to you and me.

Let's talk a little bit about navigating things like the VA and dealing with health issues during your transition, anything like that. How is the transition part of this impacted by these things?

Alex and I proposed to veterans as we've done this research, and I've also lived through this with my father for his 28 years of service and then my nine years. But they need to take an active approach to this 12 to 24 months out and plan for this. As Alex said earlier—

We train for a mission. We train for a purpose and a cause. In the military, we do this every day. Why would you not train to get out of the military? And I think it's that fundamental understanding that you have to prepare for this. You have to get out to reduce that stress because at some point in time, they are going to go through some sort of stress during this transition. This is so important.

And it's not understood in practical terms in our opinion. Healing one's wounds, whether visible or invisible, can be for some, not everyone, but can be for some a major life challenge. If one looks at it as a challenge that needs to be tackled in practical terms, that can be helpful. We have also discovered and we have listed in our book and in the annexes to our book that are on our website, which is heroes-journey.net.

the best, most practical resources about healing that are available. This book has been a five-year effort and it's taken that long to put that list together and present it. We would say that the amount of innovation in medicine and therapy and healing that exists today is quantum leaps over what it used to be. And it is on the veteran and spouse to discover them

But there are amazing resources out there, and it's up to you and us to help find them. We would also say that this is a moment for those that are having a really tough time, and we hope some of them are in the audience and maybe can hear this, that one should never give up. There's always inspiration and hope and healing that's available for the toughest of challenges.

And one reason we tell the stories of several injured veterans is to provide that inspiration. And so what we're saying to folks, what we're asking folks is never give up. Could you give that website one more time, spell it out, just to make sure people know which one to go to and how to find your resources? Sure. It's heroes, H-E-R-O-E-S, hyphen, journey.com.

Is there anything else that we didn't cover that you'd really like for people to know and for veterans to hear today? We would like every veteran to understand that their career and their journey is one of nobility and great purpose, and we recognize that. And now getting out, I think they need to prepare for themselves. And I understand that they worked under this adage of team, teammates, self for many years, if not decades, in the service of this country.

They need to be selfish just for a moment and make sure that their self is fixed. As we talk about Herakles circles of concern, they are not going to be a full member or contribute member to the family or the community if they do not fix themselves. So having that realization, the last thing I would say is find a mentor, not just a mentor to find, get you a job or to help. You need a true mentor to help you guide through this world of emotions, this loss of identity and finding new purpose.

I think that's perfect for any of us, veteran, non-veteran. If in the toughest days, the days that look cloudy, we can hold on to things that matter to us, the things we stand for in life, our sense of purpose, our sense of contribution to causes greater than ourselves.

All of which are themes that anyone who has served our country in the military understands implicitly and has lived. If you can bring those into your civilian life, you will have things that sustain you

and bring you to better places, higher places, and also help you get through the tough days. And that's one thing we hope we leave with veterans and their spouses. Well said. I really appreciate both of you giving us your time today.

This is a very important topic, and I think we always talk about it around Veterans Day and things like that. I think this is one of those things that we need to make sure we're doing year-round because, like you said, this is a really important and difficult time.

So thank you both. Again, I'm so sorry that I'm not in studio to shake your hand in person, but I really appreciate your time today. We were deeply offended, but we have a way for you to make it up to us, which is you have us back. We're going to bring you extra copies of our book. Most of all, thank you for today. It's a real honor for us to be at Fox more than we can tell you on Veterans Day. So thank you from the

the bottoms of our hearts. You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown. And now, stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon Music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to foxnews.com.

From the Fox News Podcasts Network, subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy Podcast. Former federal prosecutor and four-term U.S. Congressman from South Carolina brings you a one-of-a-kind podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to foxnewspodcasts.com.