Be willing to Be the One

"Be willing to show up for a veteran. Be willing to push and prod if things don’t add up.
Marcus Luttrell, David Bellavia, Gold Star wife Lisa Biddle & Michael Rodriguez want you to #BeTheOne to reach out to a #veteran in crisis. It can save a life.
Learn more: betheone.org

[@mattanderson861]

Luv this 🙏🇺🇸

[@Franklin-j2024]

I reached out after 17 years to the VA MH folks. They have been helpful. If not I would not be writing this.

[@americanlegionHQ]

Thank you for sharing, it is great to hear that the VA has been helpful to you. We are glad you are still here with us.

[@JuanAppleseed-ge6tb]

I stopped reaching out because literally every single one of my buddies from deployment gets uncomfortable when I bring up what happened. Literally. Every. Single. One. It got to the point where it was causing me MORE stress to attempt to communicate, rather than just pretending like it never happened. 1% of us want to help and receive help and talk it out. It's the other 99% that shut it down. No wonder veterans unalive themselves at such a high rate. WE. REFUSE. TO. TALK.

[@nocapbussin]

This may be long so bare with me. Talking things out doesn't work for men. Modern psychology made the grave mistake that it does because some of the first therapy patients were all female and so they saw that when females talk things out there is a catharsis for them where they can feel better. This is not the same for men. Our VA system and our entire psychological medical system has greatly failed men over the past 100 years. The reason men don't feel comfortable talking is because on an unconscious level it is a display of weakness and in our evolution where we came up in tribes going to war together, weakness was very dangerous. What you should do is start a hobby working with your hands. This includes physical fitness. Men heal psychologically by doing things, women heal by talking.

[@nocapbussin]

Read on warriors of the past who were brutal, especially the Comanche and Mongols. You may have done or seen things that give you guilt, but understand this guilt is not natural to the human psyche and it is a modern phenomenon. Our ancestors were brutal and they didn't have the same types of traumas that we have as Westerners. The only way to heal your mind is to harden your mind. Don't fall into the despair of guilt, understand that you were/are a warrior doing what warriors have always done. Only then can you make peace with yourself. The Taliban don't live with guilt. Why? Because they are a proud warrior people. The insurgents and jihadists in Iraq don't live with guilt because they are warriors. Find peace in knowing that the world is brutal and the lines between right and wrong are not black and white

[@JuanAppleseed-ge6tb]

@@nocapbussin I completely agree with what you said, but I do want to clarify that I'm not guilty of what I did on deployment. I feel guilty that the people who died in my unit were older than me and were married and had kids. I was a single dude who simply got a couple scratches but made it home fine. Behavior on deployment can make people feel guilty or question what they are doing, but I don't suffer from that specific guilt. Your concept of tribalism is something I have long believed in, simply because it's verified throughout all of history. "Ideals are peaceful. History is violent."

[@nocapbussin]

@@JuanAppleseed-ge6tb I completely understand. So what I would say in that case is that they chose their lives as warriors and they died as warriors. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Even if they had families, even if they died in a blast or took fire completely unaware and vulnerable, they still died as warriors doing what warriors have always done. The problem with our modern world is that we have no rites of passage in almost anything anymore, especially warrior culture. We have no healthy way to grieve because our views of life and death are so warped. In times past, a warriors death was celebrated, not in a cold and uncaring way, quite the opposite. The mythos of people throughout the world incorporated loss of life in a very rational way that doesn't exist today because our modern western world says either "You die and go to heaven or hell" or "You die and there is nothing else". Fuck, me, if that's not a mindfuck in itself losing someone you care about (family, friend, or brother in arms) only to be told they'll either go to a vaguely described sky party, a place of torture or damnation, or they just don't exist at all. This may sound "New-Agey", but change how you view their deaths, no matter how bad it was, and give them some death with pride and honor. The hardest part is that our wars over the past several decades have been totally meaningless and so don't lie to yourself that they died for freedom or whatever political nonsense civilians love parroting, but see their deaths as warriors falling and make a ritual for closure out of it even if it's only you partaking. Make something that represents them, burn it, and scatter the ashes. But do it with pride, respect, and honor. The human mind works in very interesting ways and one of the ways it works the most interesting is when rituals are involved. Creating psychological dramas speak to parts of ourselves that have been dormant for a very long time and only in recent times with technology that can scan brainwave activity can we see the full benefits of performing tasks that aren't logical, but rather illogical. Our emotional minds don't see the world logically, it only understands images and feeling which is why when you see native Americans doing a pow-wow, it looks crazy on the outside and makes no logical sense, even the myths and stories make no logical sense, but it's not the rational part of the mind they are working with, it's the irrational, and that's where psychological healing comes from.

[@JuanAppleseed-ge6tb]

@@nocapbussin I legit can't argue with anything you said 😂 I respect the thought process and the communication of said thoughts I think I'm a by-product of modern society in regards to me being a war veteran, but also feeling bad for the kids who don't have dads anymore because of a bomb. I had no problem doing my job over there, but I was never able to justify my dudes getting dropped and their kids growing up without dads. Warriors doing their job, of course, but the kids didn't volunteer to be a warrior's kid. I know they have to deal with it, regardless, but it's still rough. "Your dad was a warrior" is the one of those compliments that you never want to hear as a kid.

[@lindabb621]

Most Legionnaires in south AZ at our meetings get very uncomfortable and upset discussing this. Why? It’s not like we live forever. Don’t talk about it is there MO. Sad 😮

[@5710fpilot]

Northern AZ here, and I agree, it's not a comfortable subject, but you never know when it's your time to Be The One. ❤