| My Mission Statement and Roles |
heights and the depths. I will encourage those around me to achieve their goals and live their dreams by mentoring, teaching, and leading by example. I will take time, weekly, to reconnect. I am honest and have integrity and will be loyal to those not present. I do not make excuses nor blame others and will own up to the matters at hand; take responsibility. I will honor the Goddess and the God. I will not accept discrimination based on race or gender or sexuality. I will let others help me when I am in need of help. I will maintain this body and mind that I have by eating healthy, exercising, and being mindful of what I am spending my time on. As Plato wrote, I will remember that other people have it harder than I do. I will seek first to understand, then to be understood. |
| Bartender |
| College Student |
| Family/Friend |
| Combat Arms Instructor |
| Men's Group Co-Facilitator |
| Writer |
| GLBT Advocate |
| Veterans Advocate |
| Mission Statement |
| goals for the coming year |
Plug my presentation about Warrior Traditions, Resiliency, and PTSD into programs for returning troops. I have a paper that is twenty something pages long that starts to look at the divide between environmentalists and the timber industry. I am interested in context, in social factors, and so forth. The dichotomy of either/or is so false as to be comical at Shakespearian levels. There are so much more common ground than both sides realize. Again, if I can tie things together in a meaningful way that contributes I would like to submit it for publication. I want to apply to a graduate school program. Run the Eugene Marathon and the Portland Marathon. My goal is to beat the time of my first marathon (Portland, 2009) of 4 hours 13 minutes. Hike to the top of Mary's Peak. Camp out in the Wall-Wall Wilderness and hear the sound of wolves howling. Locate some Pacific Loons, Marbled Murrelet, and Spotted Owl on my birding list. Graduate with a degree in both Psychology and Philosophy. |
| A person I admire came out as a gay man a decade ago. I admire his courage and honesty. Since the time I left the active duty world of the Marines and have left the South I've come into contact with many in the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Trans community and my phobias and discomfort and dislike and so forth, melted away as I got to know them. As I learn more and educate myself I am amazed at how silly a thing it is to group people by sexual orientation or gender identification. The question, for me is really what sort of person is this? What is their character? Those individuals of talent and courage and love... those are the ones I will befriend and call my own, regardless of their orientations. As one looks at people in this manner, other things seem so unimportant (race, class, etc...). There are some that attack this community on religious grounds and to these I ask, 'who would Jesus hate'? 'Who would Jesus be afraid of'? As I've sought to educate myself I've found a very long history of GLBT people in the military. Therefore, I am in support of HR 1246. I am a public ally of the GLBT community. |
| I currently teach infantry skills to National Guard soldiers. That is I am a part of a group of instructors that take a class of soldiers and teach them the things they need to know to operate as infantry before being deployed overseas. A large part of this is how to conduct ambushes, react to contact, and other aggressive fighting skills. Anger figures predominantly in such training as I seek to help the soldier connect to the Ares, god of slaughter and war, that resides within him. |
| As my fellow soldiers come back from theater there is sometimes an issue of readjustment. The amazing thing is that upwards of 85% of troops deployed to very stressful conditions will have resiliency in dealing with these stressors. 15% of those coming back will show PTSD symptoms. However this is not the same as meaning they are weak. As I noted in the Combat Instructor Role, anger becomes a very real problem for a soldier returning from war. When you add survivor's guilt, anger, anxiety, and the hyper-masculine responses that are largely accepted within military culture you end up with a recipe for hard times for that soldier (male and female alike). We share common character strengths and virtues such as courage, persistence, integrity, and teamwork. By focusing on our strengths and how it might take courage to address survivor's guilt with your friends and family is to do a great deal toward healing. I travel around the region offering lectures, presentations, discussions, to anyone that will have me (free of charge). I can relate some of the current psychological practices with a language that is not so offensive to the military mindset. |
| I work as a co-facilitator for a male domestic violence group consisting of all veterans. It has increased my love and desire to help my fellow veterans. I work for a company that does not believe that men are naturally violent or evil (for isn't this a gendered way of thinking?) but that human beings are complex. Men can be violent (as can women) but they can also be nurturing and caring, loving and understanding. It is in no way a lessening of a man to express his feelings. The quick reaction reflexes that I train in my infantry students come back to haunt them after combat. For without any further training the soldier might respond to every problem with the only tool in his/her toolbox... anger and directness. Add to this experiences in a combat zone that have served him/her very well to keep him/her alive, such as watching others, ready to respond, vigilance to environment, detail oriented, overkill, shoot first ask questions later, and others... it is little wonder that domestic violence is so common among our returning veterans. I understand the explosive anger. I've been in many situations since Iraq where someone did something that 'set me off' and to which I started to respond with ferocity (if you consider getting out of the car on a freeway to run up to another's parked car as such). These soldiers are not evil men that hate their wives. They men dealing with the training and experiences that kept them alive for war but did not prepare them to interact with others in meaningful ways. They are my brothers and I love them. This does not mean I excuse them for their actions. They must pay the price, do the work, and be held accountable. But accountability and responsibility are part of our military culture and no worthy soldier seeks to shirk responsibility. |