Veteran Lives Matter
This is my own story and observation as a veteran
I began to write this last week. My intention was to address the plethora of headlines about cuts to veteran benefits. The problem is that the stories in the media about the VA have largely been repetitive. There have been some more singular stories, such as the one of two-tour Iraq veteran Joy Marver, whose experience being fired from her VA job by DOGE1 was chronicled for a New York Times piece published on March 30.2 (If you don’t have a New York Times subscription, try accessing it through your public library; most public libraries pay for digital and paper subscriptions to top national newspapers. There are also some very swell people on Bluesky3 who post gift articles. Just sayin’. I do like to plug Bluesky.) As I thought more about the piece I wanted to write, I decided to talk about my experience as a veteran in general. I’ve been a VA patient since about 2005. The following story is about how the military and the VA have impacted my life for the better. I considered putting a paywall on it, but since completing the piece, it became clear that what is needed now in the public square is more not less accessible veteran testimonies. I have already written about my time in the Navy in another article, “New Adulting.” Below, I have written about both ends of my service time, the beginning (boot camp) and the end (becoming a veteran.) There’s humanity in the military/veteran experience that I hope to preserve because it seems to be in danger of being lost amid all the stereotypes, archetypes and tropes.
Since my honorable discharge in November 2001, I have been a veteran of the U.S. Navy. Technically, I was discharged onto the Temporary Disability Retirement List, having to review my status periodically until I was finally determined to be eligible for full separation in 2005. So I became eligible for VA benefits in 2005, not 2001, and so this year marks 20 years that I have been going to VA clinics and hospitals for healthcare, including mental health treatment, and using the GI Bill for university tuition. I still remember the last review at the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton, where the doctor was determined to make sure that I knew how to connect with all of my VA benefits before I was permanently cut loose from active duty obligation—who to call, what forms and documents I needed, all of it. He knew I was sure to be released and he wanted to ensure that I made use of all the benefits I had earned. As always, even in walking away, the Navy made things easy for me. It may sound to a civilian who never served in the military like a strange thing to say, but it’s true. What makes things “easy” in the military is the consistency. (I was reminded recently from someone who quoted a line in Harold and Maude that consistency is not a common human trait.) There’s a certain code that everyone (enlisted in the military) learns in boot camp. The regulations, the procedures, the expectations….all are part of the code, just as every service member knows by heart the phonetic alphabet. I can’t speak for other veterans, but for me “the code,” as I’m calling it, is probably the thing I miss the most about the military. Nothing beats having that assurance about the people around you, that they all speak the same language. Prior to the military, I often had problems in communication with others. I was always on a different page, so to speak. My neurodivergent brain perceived and processed things my own way. Boot camp broke things down and reshaped the world, and suddenly I could form a puzzle that wasn’t totally out of step. One example of this was the M16 training. We had to learn how to break the rifle down, clean the parts, and put it back together; and do all of that in a certain time. I had never touched a gun before in my life and, I admit, at first the rifle was a total enigma to me. One day, though, one of my division’s RDCs, Petty Officer D—-, took me and some other poor struggling souls into a room where we could do some extra practice. Now Petty Officer D— was an interesting one. She was so tough. She was just like you would imagine an RDC in a movie, getting up in your face and yelling at you. She put me in her sights a lot. It was excruciating, but even as I experienced her scrutiny, there was something inside me that just knew….knew that it was doing me good. The best way I can describe her effect on me is to draw a comparison to Harry Potter’s relationship with Professor Snape. It was like having a teacher who literally seems to look right through you (Snape could read minds, and Harry could feel it quite early in their acquaintance.) You feel as though the teacher hates you, but later, as you gain more perspective, you realize what was actually happening. You are being changed because this person is not going to let you do anything the way you used to do it or even the way you’ve done it under others’ supervision. Those things you used to tell yourself, she’s not hearing it. Don’t even say it, don’t start. That rifle, it was just a puzzle. We take out the pieces and we put them back in. I don’t remember exactly how it clicked in my brain. There was just a point where I broke it down and put it back together in less than a minute. I stood up while everyone else was still working on theirs and I felt so weird. I’m pretty sure Petty Officer D— was smiling, but it was hard to tell; I think she was trying not to smile. I had to suppress my own smile. I couldn’t believe I finished breaking it down and putting it back together before anyone else, but that’s what happened, and it kept happening. I went from being one of the slowest to the fastest. To this day, whenever I watch Forrest Gump, I shake my head when he finishes putting his rifle together before anyone else. I just remember the drill sergeant getting in his face and screaming: “God damn it, Gump! You're a goddamn genius!....You must have an IQ of 160.” Petty Officer D— never did this, but only because she didn’t need to. She had a way of getting in your face….without getting in your face. After that remarkable moment, she pretty much left me alone. I guess she’d done what she needed to do with me. She never singled me out again.
The other RDC for my division was a Chief Petty Officer. Like Petty Officer D—, the Chief was unshakable, but she was different too. She was more personable than D—. I don’t remember her name, only her red hair and attitude of amusement. She was always in a jovial mood and would find a joke to make in every situation. Both CPO and D— were women who knew how to do their jobs. They did their jobs differently but to the same effect—very confidently and very well. One day we were at the medical center. I think it was the first week of boot camp. We were all assembled for Medication. The problem was that I had a hard time swallowing pills unless it was with food. There were two pills in a little cup and the expectation was to use another little cup of water to wash them down. CPO noticed that I hadn’t taken the pills. She told me to come forward, so I did. I stood in front of her, facing her. She asked me why I didn’t take the pills. I told her that I couldn’t do it, not with just water. She didn’t believe me. She told me it was just a mindset. It was a story I was telling myself. She said she wasn’t going to let me go anywhere until I swallowed those pills. She would stand there, I would stand there, until I did it. She was not unkind, just determined. This was not a suggestion, nor something to be debated. This was a thing that was going to happen. I was going to put the pills in my mouth, swallow them, and wash them down with water; and you know what? That’s exactly what I did. And swallowing pills was never a problem, ever again. I don’t want you to have the idea that it was easy. I didn’t do it on the first try, nor the second. I was uncomfortable, embarrassed, and there was a moment of gagging. She wouldn’t let me give up, though. She wasn’t mean. She just said, “We can do this all day if we need to.” She was serious. We would keep standing there until I swallowed those pills. I still love her for that. What she did, how she handled that, it set me free. At that moment, I did feel liberated. I know it seems like a small thing, but if you can’t do something, if you’re telling yourself a story that you cannot do something, that’s a barrier. CPO taught me how to overcome an unnecessary obstacle. What if a runner stopped on the track and said, “I can’t run anymore because of this barrier.” If that runner had jumped other barriers, but somehow this one prevented the runner from ever running again, he or she could either decide to stop running (just give up running) or remove the barrier—jump over it, walk around it, whatever. Do what you need to do to keep running. I mean, if you “can’t” run because you’re in a wheelchair, there are wheelchair races too. It’s like that character in the movie produced by my friends Sandon Berg and Michael Akers, the eponymous character, Morgan, a bicycle racer who, after an accident put him in a wheelchair, became a wheelchair racer.4
Speaking of running…. We had to do a lot of it in boot camp. Before boot camp, I was a lousy runner. I’m still not a great runner, and I still don’t enjoy running. I’m a much more natural swimmer. After boot camp, I always opted for the swimming test instead of the running test in the Physical Readiness Test (PRT). In boot camp, however, running was the only option, and we had to run the PRT in formation. We did regular formation runs around the track to get ready for the test. I remember there was shame in the division if you ended up in the back of the formation. Some people actually dropped out of the formation and lagged quite far behind. I was generally in the caboose of the formation or at least very close to it. I remember how badly my chest hurt, how hard it was to keep up. Petty Officer D— always ran slow so she could stay at the back and yell at the slowpokes to keep moving. CPO always ran in the front, a more encouraging, less demeaning presence. I don’t know how I did it, but I did manage to stay in the formation. I felt good about that, but I wanted to do even better for the actual test. When it came to the test day, I was lined up in the third row of the starting formation. I kept telling myself, don’t fall behind the third row. Whatever you do, stay in the third row. Just stay in the third row. And we were off, and I just kept repeating to myself, no matter how badly my chest hurts and I want to throw up, do not fall behind. I didn’t. I started that damn physical test in the third row and I finished that damn physical test in the third row. I don’t know what the motivational speakers would say about it. I guess they would attribute my success to “mind over matter.” Maybe that was it. I know that’s what my maternal uncles would say, that it’s a classic case of putting your mind to something and accomplishing it by sheer will power. I suspect “mind over matter” is part of the equation, but there was something more. It was just like CPO’s persistence about swallowing the pill and Petty Officer D—’s similar “we’ll this if it takes all day” approach to the rifle exercises. There was a stubbornness that had to be overcome. There was a story in my head that had to be tweaked. First, I had to accept that another story was possible. The military helped me to see the infinite possibilities in my story. There is very little about anyone’s life that is fixed and unchangeable. Only death and taxes, right? “Change is hard.” Not necessarily. It can be extremely difficult if you’re pushing against it. Resistance makes everything harder. That’s what it comes down to, what Petty Officer D— and the Chief Petty Officer drilled into me. Stop resisting. Open up. Find a way. See what you can do.
“What I can do” is a thing I as well as fellow veterans I know think about a lot. What’s possible? How can I contribute? How can I make something better? I’ve lived in a lot of different places. I’ve traveled a lot. I was born in Louisiana, but I graduated from high school in California. I joined the Navy from California. I served at a base north of Philadelphia and at the Naval Station in Norfolk, VA. I’ve lived in New York, Boston, and multiple places up and down California, including Los Angeles. In each of those places I have been served by the VA. The VA is my healthcare. I’ve seen up close how efficient the VA is. I’m not saying it doesn’t have problems. I just want to tell you what I’ve seen that is really good about it. The secure VA app and email system is incredible, allowing patients to easily communicate with doctors about care, prescriptions, and appointments. The medication mailing system is one of the best things about the VA, in my opinion. I hear about civilians getting their meds at CVS or Walgreens, and I’m sure that’s great, but I love that my meds come straight to my mailbox from the VA pharmacy. I also love being able to order my refills through the VA app. I don’t see any signs that my own doctors are part of the 80,000 planned employee cuts planned by DOGE and VA Secretary Doug Collins. They say it’s a “goal”5 (to cut 80K) and that they may or may not reach the “goal.” They’ve also suggested that they are targeting probationary employees, those being people who are in the first year of federal employment, but a federal judge already ordered them to rehire some of their probationary firings.6 I feel that my best contribution to this issue is to communicate as best as I can the importance of VA services. I’ve already named the ones I appreciate the most as a direct beneficiary—the pharmacy, the mental health services, and primary care. I hope Doug Collins is telling the truth when he says that essential services like those are not on the chopping block. My skepticism goes up when I see a disingenuous quote from him about “yoga teachers.”7 The VA, as far as I know, does not employ yoga teachers. The VA does partner with Ompractice to connect veterans with free yoga, tai-chi, pilates, meditation, and mindfulness classes.8 This is a partnership, not an employment. VA medical centers around the country are also partnered with research hospitals. For example, the VA Southeast Louisiana system is partnered with Tulane and LSU medical schools, offering residency training and teaching and research affiliations with those institutions.9 These kinds of partnerships are not employment relationships, but rather they are contracts that benefit not only the VA and veterans, but also the medical profession at large and, in the case of Ompractice, private practitioners of wellness therapies. Far from being a drain on taxpayers, the VA is an organization that gives and serves far more than it takes. The veterans who use the VA understand how important it is. It is up to us to watch DOGE and Doug Collins closely and then make sure our representatives in Congress know when they are getting it wrong. Do not despair. When the people speak and vote, good things happen. I’ll leave you with an article that made me smile. On Monday, March 31,
published a report on the previous Saturday’s election in Louisiana, which was an incredible success (a BFD, Big effing Deal, as she said.) We got there because of high voter turnout. That’s how it’s done, friends.
NOTES
DOGE: Department Of Government Efficiency, created by executive order of President Trump to target “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the federal government. It’s a very controversial agency of the Executive Branch being run by “senior advisor to the President” Elon Musk. I’ve heard DOGE pronounced a lot of ways. Elon pronounces it with a soft-G, like dogecoin, his favorite cryptocurrency. Opponents of DOGE like to pronounce it various ways, one of my preferred being “dodgy.” It is, don’t you think? I hear from a lot of veterans that the idea behind DOGE is a good one, but their slash-and-burn, cut-now-fix-later approach is all wrong. They’re trying to make the federal government efficient by inefficient means.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/doge-iraq-veteran-fired.html
Bluesky: A fine alternative to Elon’s X platform. It’s dominated by the most excellent progressive minds, like Mark Hamill; veterans like
, & ; and badasses like John Cusack. They joined, so should you. If you decide to join, let’s follow each other. Find me as always @ heavycrownpress.Morgan (2012) was a film I was involved in promoting in my job as social media manager for United Gay Network, an indy film production company founded by Sandon Berg and Michael Akers. Michael directed the film and they both wrote the screenplay. It is watchable on the major streaming platforms. Yes, I’m plugging it. They are my friends. I like to help my friends.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/01/veterans-affairs-secretary-collins-workforce-cuts-howell-barrett/82739263007/#
See note 1
See note 5
https://app.ompractice.com/veteransaffairs
https://www.va.gov/southeast-louisiana-health-care/about-us/