Hi, and welcome to Vet Resources Check-In.
Thanks for joining us.
We're going to spend the next 15 minutes
doing a quick talk around resources for veterans
and their families.
I'm Matt Cassady.
I'm a chaplain with the VA.
I'm also an Afghanistan veteran.
I served in 82nd Airborne Division.
2005, my unit did a quick deployment to Afghanistan
to help secure the elections that were ongoing at the time.
I went back a little over a year later
with an aviation task force
and was there from almost all of 2007
into the first part of 2008,
so I'm there with you as a veteran.
I have served not only in combat,
out of combat, in garrison, hospitals,
and so I'm here today because I care about you.
I care about your families, your caregivers and your kids,
so I just want to start you off
with a quote here from Winston Churchill.
Many of you know he was the leader
of Great Britain in World War II.
He once said, "Nothing in life is so exhilarating
as to be shot at without resolve."
So first thing I want to do is,
I want to talk about what's going on right now,
and we've titled today's little talk
"Moral Injury and Spiritual Practices,"
and so what are y'all feeling right now,
especially folks that have come in post-9/11
that served in Afghanistan and Iraq?
And we're going to talk a little bit about what I'm feeling,
so this is helpful for me as a veteran
as well to help kind of talk about this and share with y'all.
First thing I want to let y'all know is,
it is okay to be mad about what's going on right now,
about what happened as we drew down in Afghanistan,
the heartbreaking images that we saw on the news,
to look back at over,
you know, 20 years of combat in Afghanistan.
It's okay to be mad.
I'd be surprised if y'all aren't mad.
I think that's probably a pretty normal emotion.
I have long said that anger is an emotion
that seems to be the one that I'm most in touch with,
but there are other emotions that we have as well,
and it's very helpful to be able to share those with others.
I think one of the things that I feel
that's right along with anger
and being mad is just the disappointment,
that I'd hoped that, you know, the service that I gave,
that my friends gave, people that I served with,
that my family endured the sacrifice
of having their dad gone for 18 months.
My wife had to deal with me being gone for 18 months
and being, you know, the primary caregiver
for our three children at the time.
There were a lot of sacrifices that happened,
and I know there's a lot of feeling around that,
and I want y'all to know that,
one, that's okay if you're mad, if you're upset,
if you're just frustrated as all get out.
Yesterday I was watching the news,
and there was a veteran that said,
"Hey, you know what? My buddy died in 2011.
Did he die for nothing?"
I would like to let y'all know
that your sacrifice was not for nothing.
Your friends did not die for nothing.
My friends didn't die for anything.
For 20 years, we gave the people of Afghanistan a glimpse
of what life in a democratic and free country looked like.
At some point, that had to be taken on and primary ownership
had to be taken by not only the Afghan people
but the Afghan government as well,
and so the politicians in both parties across,
I mean, for the last 2 decades
have been a part of the decisions
that have led to our withdrawal in Afghanistan,
and so I get it.
There's probably a lot of feeling of,
"Man, I wish we would've done better,"
and I think as we look back at --
or as we look at moral injury,
Jon Shay, who wrote a book called "Achilles" --
It was a walk-through,
the "Achilles" novelette, I guess --
wrote a book on veterans in Vietnam.
It was when he first was working with veterans in the '80s
and coined the term "moral injury,"
and it was the betrayal of what's right by someone
or something in a high-stakes situation,
and so we have an idea of what's right.
We have an idea of what needs to happen, what should happen,
and that there is a betrayal there,
but I want to make sure
that, you know, we're all looking at this
that it's not a betrayal of one person.
It's not a betrayal of one political leader.
In some aspects, it's the betrayal of our ideals,
and so I think some of that hurt needs to squarely lay
on the shoulders of the politicians in Afghanistan,
and I think that's completely fair,
and I want you to know that you are not
the only one feeling that way.
I talk to veterans all over the country,
and that is something that we're all feeling,
that we all wrestle with, and that's okay.
I think the danger becomes when we stop letting others know
that we're upset and we start to try to internalize that.
That's where we kind of build up the pressure,
and so a message I would have for y'all that,
you know, so moral injury is real,
and we're going to talk about some spiritual practices
that can help relieve some of that moral injury
or really address some of that moral injury.
One of the things that we want to talk about
is how veterans across the country take advantage
and use those benefits that they've earned.
We have VA chaplain services across the country.
Every state that you're in, we have VA chaplain services,
and I want you to feel free to reach out to those chaplains.
Chaplains in the VA are much like chaplains in the military.
We have one caveat, that we will document
lightly in your medical record just to say,
"Hey, we met. We talked."
If you have stuff that you want to talk about
that you don't want in your medical record, just say,
"Hey, I'd prefer this not to be in there."
We don't need to discuss all the particulars,
but certainly to let other folks know
on the team that we've talked and we've got some concerns,
or you've got some concerns around some areas,
I think is incredibly helpful.
So one of the things that chaplains can do,
we can sit down and we can talk with you.
We can talk about some of the things
that have happened on your deployments.
We can talk about things that are going on in your life.
We can talk about how your faith informs your life in these times
and at times of struggle,
and we want that to be a reality.
That quote that I gave you earlier from Winston Churchill
was a quote on his writing from the Malakand Field Force
in 1897.
The book was about the Frontier Wars
where they were fighting the Talib in Western Pakistan
and Eastern Afghanistan,
and so the battle in Afghanistan,
the fights in Afghanistan aren't from the last 20 years.
We're talking centuries that these fights have been going on,
and I want you to know, there's nothing that you did
that was wrong about your service,
that you served honorably,
that you did everything your country asked you to do,
and we want to honor that,
and as the VA we want to honor that.
As chaplains in our chaplain services we want to honor that,
and we want you to know that we not only appreciate you,
but we're here for you today as well.
I think one of the things that we look for
in a call-to-action,
"What can we do to help with things?"
The easiest way to get linked up with a VA chaplain
is to pick up the phone,
call your local chaplain service.
If your COVID protocols in your local area allow you to,
you can stop by the local facility
and drop in with your chaplain service.
I want you to also think about the community members
you have outside the VA.
Some folks don't want to step foot inside the VA.
I admit I was that way as well.
When I first came out of service, I thought,
"I never want to have anything to do with the VA,"
but then I became a patient at the VA,
and I realized in very quick time
that I actually liked the VA,
that they treat me incredibly well.
The care was better than it was out in the local community,
and I began to have this really great feeling that,
"Hey, the VA is here for me, and they care about me."
Not everybody has that.
Not everybody has that desire.
Not everybody has that experience,
but I want you to know that we're here for you.
If you don't want to come to the VA, that's completely okay, too.
We've got members in the community.
You've got your faith community.
You've got clergy members that are there for you
that can sit down and talk with you.
I think one of the best things
that I ever had was a conversation with my pastor,
who I was having a pretty big struggle
around some things in combat,
and he just looked at me and said, "Matt, you are human.
How would you expect to not be affected by this?"
And that was incredibly freeing to me,
but it was also, I took a deep breath and I said,
"Wow, I am human. I should have these feelings.
I should have these thoughts, these reactions.
I should have these."I think in the military,
we can look back and we can say,
you know, the old adage of, you know, "Are you broke?"
Well, machines are broken, but people aren't.
We aren't machines.
We like to think of ourselves as machines,
especially as we're younger and our bodies
can do pretty amazing things.
As we get older and as I get older,
I realize I wasn't the machine that I thought I was,
and if I was, I'm getting kind of worn out,
and I have to take myself offline
and work on some things, but we're not machines.
We have emotions.
We have feelings.
We need to be able to share those with one another,
and so if you don't feel comfortable
with going to the VA, that's perfectly fine.
What about your community members of faith outside the VA?
Another resource I want y'all to know about is,
there are vet centers that are quasi-attached to the VA.
They are a part of the VA, but they work much differently.
They're on a different setup, and so if you don't want
to go to your VA, maybe go to a vet center.
I've got a guy that I worked with in service
as a chaplain who recently retired.
He started working as a readjustment counselor
with the vet center.
That guy is switched on.
He's been deployed and done stuff all over the world.
Those are the types of folks that we have at vet centers.
Those are also the types of folks that we have at the VA.
Other resources I want you to know about --
There are a lot of other opportunities
that we have within faith communities.
I'm specifically thinking about one, REBOOT Recovery.
It's a great model.
It helps you and your spouse walk through a lot of combat.
I've had friends that have really,
really benefited from going through a cycle
and an iteration of that,
so there are other things that are out there available for you.
I think the biggest thing that I want you to all take away
from that is, you don't have to do this alone.
You're not alone.
You're not. I'm here with you.
Your fellow veterans are here with you.
You're not alone.
It might feel like it, but you can reach out to somebody else.
We've got social media that you can reach out to folks on.
A lot of folks can tag back with their friends
from their units that they served with.
Reach out, start talking.
I think one of the things that is most helpful,
especially when moral injury is at work
and that feeling of that betrayal is being able
to voice that and state that with someone else,
and if it's people in your unit
that you are able to do that first with, wonderful.
If it's people like your spouse that you're able to say,
"Hey, you know what?
I really feel like this really sucks,
and I feel just absolutely betrayed
that our mission wasn't honored."
Voicing that is important,
and I think it's an honest feeling,
and it's probably also an accurate feeling,
and I think most people around you will know
that you feel this way,
but you being able to voice it I think
is where you begin to gain some of the power within that,
that you're going to take back.
You're going to begin to make right.
I want to leave you with this.
So we talked about Winston Churchill a little bit,
you know, his quote that,
"Nothing in life is so exhilarating
as to be shot at without resolve,"
that that came from his book
from the 1897 "Malakand Field Force"
where he fought the Talib
in the Frontier Wars in what is now
Western Afghanistan and Eastern Afghanistan.
Here is what I want to leave you with.
Your experiences this far in your life
have prepared you for more.
They have made you stronger, more resilient,
even in the horrible times.
Simply surviving and moving on has helped prepare you
and make you more resilient,
so your experiences this far in your life
have prepared you for more,
so it's going to be one of your life's choices --
What will you do with what you now know?
Will you spend the rest of your life in service to one another?
Will you look for ways to serve in your local community?
Will you look for ways to get involved in politics?
Will you look for ways to help
Afghan refugees who have fled their country in Afghanistan
who are now looking to make the United States of America
their new home?
Will you make that one of your life's choices
to help with that?
Now, I think at the end, as we look at all these things,
and we talk about moral injury,
and we talk about spiritual resources
and what to do when you're struggling now is,
what choices will you make now
that will affect your future for the good?
I want you all to stick around as long as possible.
I want you all to have a wonderful, happy life.
My goal is that we all make it to 90-plus
and we can tell stories from 70 years ago
about the hard things that we went through in life
and how we began to make adaptations
and changes in our lives.
We learned from the past.
We resolved to not repeat these things.
I want y'all to have a lot of success.
The American people want us veterans
to have a lot of success.
We want to learn from our life,
and so again, your experiences thus far in your life
have prepared you for more.
What are you going to do with that more?
If you want to sit on your couch and have a beer and relax
and that's what you're going to do with your choices
and more, do that.
Relax, take a break, just sit in the moment for a little bit,
and then now what are we going to do after that?
I want y'all to have a great day.
My prayers continue to be with you all.
I routinely ask for God's richest blessings
to be upon your lives,
and I hope that you know that today,
as a veteran that I support you, that the VA supports you
and that the American people support you,
and we want to do the best that we can for you
and for a successful life.
Thank you all very much and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.