This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 9, 2011 - Since returning from duty in Iraq, Eric Greitens has been on a mission to help post-9/11 veterans make the transition to civilian life -- and to take their place in history as the nation's next "greatest generation."
Greitens, a St. Louis native and graduate of Parkway North High School, is a co-founder and CEO of the Mission Continues, a nonprofit that engages veterans in public service. In just four years, the nonprofit has attracted national attention for its focus on encouraging wounded and disabled veterans to continue serving their country.
It is a philosophy that found Greitens, who served with the Navy Seals, in New York this week, meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and corporate leaders to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing thousands of veterans returning from combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"My message for people on Veterans Day is to recognize veterans for everything that they have done, but also to be sure that we recognize veterans for everything that they still have to give,'' Greitens said during a phone interview Monday. "If we see veterans who are coming home -- even those who have been wounded and disabled -- if we see them not as problems but as assets, then what's possible is building the next greatest generation of leaders.''
Greitens said that Panetta wanted to hear about the approach of the Mission Continues, which helps veterans rebuild a sense of purpose in their lives through continued service to others. Accompanying Greitens was Army veteran Josh Eckhoff of St. Louis, a current participant in the program, who is volunteering with the St. Louis Science Center. Eckhoff was wounded in an explosion in Baghdad in 2008 that paralyzed his left arm.
"What Josh and I said to the secretary of defense is that this generation of veterans still has a tremendous amount to give,'' Greitens said. "If we engage communities in the right kinds of ways and we get people to get behind initiatives like the Mission Continues, we're going to see smoother transitions for those veterans when they come home.''
The Mission Continues offers service programs for all veterans but is best known for its fellowship program that is reserved for post-9/11 veterans who were wounded or disabled during their military service. Fellows work about 20 hours a week with community nonprofit groups. The program is designed to be temporary, with fellowships lasting up to 28 weeks and include a stipend of about $7,600.
"It's not intended to be permanent support. The intention is to help someone through their fellowship develop their path as a citizen,'' Greitens said.
A study published in August by Washington University's George Warren Brown School of Social Work reported that 86 percent of participants in the fellowship program viewed it as a positive life-changing experience.
Researchers polled 52 participants of the fellowship program; 88 percent had served in Iraq, Afghanistan or both, most on multiple tours of duty. Since completing the program, 71 percent reported that they had furthered their education, and 91 percent said they had built networking opportunities for a future career path.
Greitens, who serves as CEO of the Mission Continues, attended Duke University and then the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He served as a humanitarian volunteer and researcher in such far-flung locations as Rwanda, Cambodia, Croatia, Mexico and India. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 2001 and was selected to join the elite SEALS unit. He was deployed four times -- to Iraq, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa.
St. Louisans may remember that in 2010 Greitens was voted to represent St. Louis in the "All-Star Among Us" campaign conducted by Major League Baseball and People Magazine. He is also the author of "The Heart and the Fist: the education of a humanitarian, the making of a Navy SEAL'' (2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
Here are more excerpts from his interview with the Beacon:
Post-9/11 veterans were all volunteers. Why is it important that they continue to serve their country after they've completed their military service?
Greitens: As veterans serve others, they become stronger themselves. And this is true for every human being -- when you're able to take the focus off of your own pain for a minute, and you're able to take the focus off of your own worries and think about what you can do for other people. When you're able to see how you're needed, it really puts everything into perspective and enables us to live purposeful lives.
The sense of pride [of the World War II generation] is exactly the same thing this generation of veterans has. What we're doing is tapping into that. We're tapping into the fact that these men and women already volunteered to serve their country. They already have a character that's formed through teamwork and camaraderie. All of them are proud of the fact that they've served, and we provide a way for them to continue to be proud of continued service -- to contribute to their mission back at home.
You stress that the Mission Continues is not a charity - that it offers a unique perspective among veterans organizations because of its emphasis on public service as a path to purpose. How much did your background as a humanitarian worker contribute to this perspective?
Greitens: When I was 20 years old and I was living in Bosnian refugee camps, one of the things I noticed was that people who often did the best in the refugee camps were the parents and grandparents who cared for really young kids. They knew they had to wake up every single day and be strong. They knew someone else was depending on them. The teenagers who were doing the worst were sometimes people who felt that their lives had been cut been short and they didn't feel like they had any social purpose. The teenagers who did the best were volunteering in the kindergarten with the youngest kids or were helping to set up the soccer team for the younger kids in the refugee camp.
It was that sense that they were still needed that helped them to pull through their own tragedy in the refugee camp. I saw the same thing in Rwanda where I worked with the children who survived the genocide. I saw the same thing in Cambodia. In the face of a great tragedy, often what helps us to make it through is our sense of purpose.
You talk about the importance of communities reaching out to disabled veterans. How does involving them in public service help them heal?
Greitens: The most serious injuries for our veterans don't come when they lose their eyesight or their hearing -- or when they lose a limb. The most serious injury comes when they lose their sense of purpose. That's a path of anguish and despair and that's what leads to alcohol use and self-medication and it leads to domestic problems and it leads to unemployment and, unfortunately, it's also what leads to suicide. What we offer at the Mission Continues is a path that tells them not only "thank you,'' but "we still need you.''
Especially for someone who has lived through difficult circumstances, a thank-you is about what they did. 'We still need you' is about the future. When veterans hear 'thank you,' it resonates and that's important for them to hear, but there's a big wide open question: What do I do with the rest of my life?
We believe the answer to that question is that you become a citizen-leader. Veterans don't think of themselves as charity cases. They think of themselves as people dedicated to service and regardless of what happened to them on their deployments -- whatever wounds or disability they might have suffered -- they still want to find a way to contribute. They still want to find a way to be of service to others.
In "The Heart and the Fist" you describe how your humanitarian service helped convince you of the need for military strength. Still, your own path has been a unique one.
Greitens: I write about finishing my Ph.D. at Oxford. I had three options: Stay at the university, which promised a lot of freedom. Another option was to go to work at a consulting firm that promised more money in my first year than both my parents combined had ever made in a year. The third option was the U.S. Navy. The deal they gave me was if you join the Navy, we'll pay you $1,332.60 per month. On top of that, the minute you sign up you're going to owe us eight years -- four years on active duty and four years of reserve service. In return for that, we'll give you one chance at basic underwater demolition SEAL training, and if you make it you'll be on your way to becoming a Navy Seal. If you don't, you'll still owe us eight years and we'll tell you where and how you're going to serve.
I remember one night I walked into Rhodes house, and I saw the names of Rhodes scholars etched into the marble of the foyer -- all the names of Rhodes scholars who had left Oxford to fight and who had died during WWII. And I remember looking up at those names thinking if they hadn't made that choice, then I wouldn't be standing here looking up at them.
The university could give me a lot of freedom, the consulting firm could give me a lot of money, but I knew the Navy was going to give me very little but would make me more.
And part of it was also informed by having done the humanitarian work and seeing in places like Bosnia and Rwanda that the world does need people with strength to step forward to protect people who need protection sometimes. We turned the other way during the genocide in Rwanda and 800,000 civilians were killed. So all of that informed my decision.
What are your thoughts on the war in Iraq drawing to a close?
Greitens: I'm incredibly proud of my time and service, but even more than that I know that I emerged from those situations with people who are going to be my friends for the rest of my life. We built bonds that I know are going to last the rest of my life.
As a country, we really a have a battle on our hands, and the battle is to see what is going to be the legacy of this generation of veterans. We have so many thousands of veterans who are coming home. And many people when they think of veterans, they think post-traumatic stress syndrome, traumatic brain injury. They think unemployment, suicide. They think alcoholism.
I want to make sure that 10 years from now when we think about this generation of veterans we think about them as the generation that went, served overseas -- and then continued to serve again here at home.
The Heart and the Fist
What: St. Louis native Eric Greitens discusses his book "The Heart and the Fist," detailing his humanitarian work, service as a Navy Seal and nonprofit group, the Mission Continues that helps veterans adapt to civilian life through public service.
When: noon, Wed., Nov. 9
Where: Lewis Room of the Taylor Library, Fontbonne University, 6800 Wydown Blvd.
How much: Free and open to the public, but reservations are suggested. A book signing follows.
Information: Call 314-889-4571 for a reservation.
