GallantFew launches The Darby Project

GallantFew, Inc. announces launch of The Darby Project, Grant McGarry named as project director

 

Every Ranger veteran deserves a life filled with purpose and hope - and who better to help a transitioning Ranger veteran than another Ranger who has already transitioned?

The Darby Project matches transitioning Rangers with Ranger "Guides" - Rangers from the same unit, same military specialty, who have previously successfully transitioned and live in the same local area as the transitioning Ranger. This helps overcome isolation and leads to a smoother and more successful transition.

Elite US Army Rangers face unique challenges when transitioning. The characteristics that make them elite soldiers can prevent them from reaching out for assistance which in turn can lead to isolation and worse. The Veterans Administration tells us that 22 veterans take their own lives every day, and that veteran unemployment and homelessness remain unacceptably high.  

Grant McGarry

In conjunction with the launch of The Darby Project, decorated Ranger veteran, Grant McGarry, has been named as Project Director. McGarry served as rifleman to team leader in the 1st Ranger Battalion and transitioned from active duty to jobs with Triple Canopy and the Coca Cola Company, as well as starting a small business, Live the Ranger Creed. While working for Coca-Cola, Grant helped start the Coca-Cola Military Veterans Business Resource Group and was appointed the Atlanta Chapter President. Grant has a degree in Business Administration from the University of Alabama and plans to start his master's degree in the fall.  

GallantFew's Executive Director, Karl Monger, said "McGarry is a well-respected Ranger veteran who understands the unique transition challenges this community faces. His energy and focus will result in a stronger bond between the active-duty Rangers and the Ranger veteran community, which will lead more Rangers to successful civilian lives filled with purpose and hope."

Rangers planning to transition (or still working through their transition) and Ranger veterans interested in becoming Guides should visit www.darbyproject.org for more information.  There, they will provide contact information and proof of service.  Following a brief interview, they will be identified as a Guide or a Future Guide (all transitioning Rangers will one day help another) and a transition plan of support will be established.

GallantFew is a nationwide charitable nonprofit organization established in 2010 and provides a "Revolutionary Veteran Support Network".  Other programs include The Raider Project, Run Ranger Run and Descendants of Sparta.  Contact info@gallantfew.org for more information.

New Job!

After many months of waiting and attempting to be patient I landed a job within the Federal Government. It took a ton of patience and many resume updating iterations but I finally landed a job. I interviewed back in June with the Social Security Administration for a GS position within Customer Relations. Since the VA had it as a direct hire position the Social Security Administration was able to create a position for me. Thankfully, it worked. Although I had to wait a few months for everything to come back and check out okay, it was worth it. I started on September 8th and am glad it has worked out.

During my first week I have had the chance to get to talk to many of my co-workers. All of whom have family or friends that have served. It has been a blessing to break the ranks of the Federal Government since my ultimate goal was to do just that. So what I'm saying is this, if you set goals and work towards them diligently you will succeed. My path since leaving the military has not been easy. The VA has had some success in helping me but it has not been smooth. During my time working with the Vocational Rehabilitation program, I have been discouraged by many people and have had many "moments." The program ultimately lived up to what it is designed to do but I had to call my Congressperson a few times to make sure they were not losing track of the mission. I found that I had to advocate for myself in order for them to do their jobs. It worked and hopefully they can utilize the lessons learned from my case and make adjustments for the many other veterans out there seeking employment.

If you want to be successful you have to follow through with what your goals are. You have to create goals in order to meet them. I have had the opportunity to make my goals become a reality and am thankful for it. My knowledge of becoming employed is something I possess to pass on to other veterans. If you need some help, let me know. Although the VA has its many flaws, find the correct people that will do their job and confide in them. Share your goals, and if the person is not on board, fire them. Or call your Congressperson. They seem to pick up the pace after they get a call from the main boss. I will be visible a lot less on social media due to this job but I will continue the mission to help my Warfighter Family. If you need anything or know of anyone that needs some life orientation, contact me. GallantFew has given me the tools I need to succeed. I suggest anyone that has a need for success to reach out. This is not a good bye but a see ya later.

RLTW!

JD

We're very proud of Jay and his accomplishments, and of his work to help Veterans.  He's an example of success through hard work.  Work as hard post-service as you did to become successful in the military and you'll do well.  RLTW  km

Finding My Fit, The Struggles of Transition

James Ross, is a Ranger veteran, GallantFew volunteer, and our newest member of the blogging team.  He has found success in transition in a career field most Rangers haven't considered.  RLTW

When we transition from the military life to the civilian life it is hard to predict what the future brings. For me this was especially true. After my ETS in April of 2010 I began my long road to finding my fit. I always knew that I was good with communicating with people and getting them to listen to me, but how in the world does a veteran with no college degree and limited "real world" work experience put his leadership and drive to practical use?

After a long and arduous journey I eventually found myself content with day to day life. Determination and hard work as well as some inspiration from my wife got me through college. I managed to balance working full time, having a new born child, and college and received my Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Homeland Security Crisis Management in March of 2014. The question now was did I really want to go into this field of work. Much like the past four years I had a difficult time trying to pin down my fit.

In all of my years of life I had never even considered Real Estate as a career until my mother in-law (a Realtor of 20 years) said she thought I could be a great Realtor. So I went ahead and pursued my license here in the state of GA. Three weeks later I was an officially licensed real estate agent. The beauty of the whole thing is now I am able to communicate daily with a variety of different individuals, while at the same time putting to good use my leadership and drive that I learned during my years in the military. Also I no longer find myself in one place feeling stagnant as I did in the past with other career fields.

Once I received my license I became a member of The Joanne Curtin Team, which is a team associated with Keller Williams Realty Consultants. The draw of the team environment and being able to have my opinion be heard was extremely appealing. As veterans we strive to be a part of something bigger than ourselves and this was it for me. Now I am able to work in a team environment, while at the same time having the freedom to manage my own schedule and determine my own earning potential. The idea of helping other in their home buying process is also pretty cool. The beauty of the whole thing is that every single deal is different and believe me when I say that you are definitely faced with people of all kinds on a daily basis.          

The cliche of "if the shoe fits wear it" has ever been more appropriate. For the first time since I have left the military I find myself actually satisfied with my daily life. Previously I would tell myself that I was happy with what I was doing when in reality I was just masking my discontent with my situation. Now, it may just be that there is finally enough distance between me and my time in service, but I firmly believe that I have finally found my fit. Regardless of the situation any veteran finds themselves in they need to revert back to their discipline and mission focus and remember to stay on track and complete the mission though they be the lone survivor.

Complexity vs Perception

Perception is reality.  The first impression is what counts the most and often has a huge impact on a relationship, right or wrong.  But relationships are not what I want to really get after.  The real perception I'm talking about is how we look at what we do and how we go about doing it.  And it is that first impression of the task, that does make a world of difference.

Over the last year, my life has been "interesting".  I think I painted that picture pretty well in the first post.  But it got "better".  Trust me.  I had to do something about it and had to force a shift in how I saw my situation.  Starting to study again on my own, constantly reading and writing has done more for me than I think I anticipated.  Over the last few months life has started to calm down a bit and I'm doing a lot more reflecting.  Trying to make sense of what I've gone through and what I've learned.  Believe it or not, at one point in my life, some one called me cerebral.  It caught me off guard based on my propensity for pulling shenanigans and losing my temper; but I'd like to get back to acting more like that man said I was.

First, let's look at how we look at a task and the time we give to complete that task.  Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available for it's completion.  Simply put, if we allot a week to do something that should take a few hours, it will take a week.  That mundane task becomes ever more complex to justify the time allotted.  At best it really is nothing more than a psychological effect.  At worst, it's a result of bureaucracy.  We create buffers, over plan, add too many resources, stress out over it; whatever.

Here's a link to a pretty good article to look at this from a civilian or managerial point of view.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-to-use-parkinsons-law-to-your-advantage.html

But let's break this down like a fraction, Barney level.

All you need is a Task, Purpose, Standard (to include a time hack) and an Intent.  It's pretty bare bones but I'm pretty sure at one point or another, that's all we got from our commander or platoon leader or whatever.

Don't get me wrong, planning is important.  But don't over think things and always, always ALWAYS come back and spot check.  The execution and the plan.

Now let's look at Multi-Tasking.  I'm convinced that the ability to do this is a myth.  You can do one thing great or you can do 2 things half-assed.  That's my opinion anyways and if you do some research, there's a lot of others that will support me.  So let's look at the next topic.

Uni-Tasking (ability to prioritize):  This does not mean that you tell everyone to pound sand and you can only do one thing at a time.  What it means is you prioritize the tasks at hand, focus on one and knock it out to the best of your ability.  Then you re-prioritize what's left and repeat that process.  Yes, you can stop and shift your focus to another task as priorities deem.  But whatever you're doing, that is what you're doing.  I know this sounds a bit confusing but it is what it is.

Here's an example.  I'm writing an email, someone comes in and wants to talk.  I can (a) ask them to please wait while I finish the email, complete that email and then give them my undivided attention.  (b) Stop writing the email, focus on them and come back to the email later.  (c) I can keep typing and allow the person to talk, then have to go back through the email before sending it or risk looking like some half-wit with brats for fingers; meanwhile, that person's issue was only half understood.  Sure, you can do both, to a degree.  But it will yield greater results if you focus on one.

Essentially what you're doing is maintaining control.  If you have more control, you tend to be more calm and perceive things differently.  And you don't even have to be forceful with it.  Diligent and perhaps assertive, but not forceful.  When we are faced with demands and stress for whatever reason, we feel like we're not in control and therefore lack security.  Which creates more stress.  From a personal standpoint, I'm a control freak.  If I don't feel safe, I'm constantly on the defensive and the GAF meter is constantly pegged.  By sticking to this and letting everyone else know that this is how I work, has been a life saver.  I'm calmer, fewer folks bug me, I get a bunch of stuff done AND I miraculously have more time to help other people.

There will always be competing priorities and it can seem overwhelming.  If you let it become that way.  That's not saying you have to do everything yourself, but it's your butt so it's probably be a good idea to be involved and know what's going on.  SPOT CHECK.  Like any other mission or task you've done in the past, life is the same way.  Bills, jobs, taking out the trash and doing the dishes.  Nothing is cut and dry and that's ok.  Hell, I'd be bored if it were.  We thrive on a level of chaos and we love to be challenged.

It's like being on that road march late at night and you see that blinking tower that's the end of your misery.  You've been staring at it for hours and it just isn't getting in closer.  Perception.  You know it's there and you know if you keep moving, you'll get there but every step seems to hurts more than the last.  And then you finally get there and cuss that light for the next week or the next road march.

Any transition in life is difficult and ours is very much so.  But a little planning and a lot of patience goes a long way.  Sooner or later it's gonna happen.  Whether you retire or separate, change jobs, or move.  And the person that makes it harder than anyone else is yourself.

An old paratrooper told me a very long time ago "Trust your equipment as well as your training and never hesitate in the door."  And we've always heard to push through the "fatal funnel" because it is the most dangerous place in the small portion of your world at that moment. Once you commit, that's it.  Stick to it and get it done.  It might be harder than you thought.  But what are you gonna do, quit?  I didn't think so.

SPOTCHECK:

K.I.S.S.
Remember the TLPs and the 5 Principles of Patrolling.
Prioritize
SPOTCHECK

Check or Hold?

"Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission, though I be the lone survivor."

Pride In Professionalism

You know, I've been thinking and have had this conversation with a lot of different people over the years.  More so recently.

Do you really take pride in what you do?  Personally, I take pride in everything I do.  Why?  Because it's professionalism.  A job worth doing is a job worth doing well.  What I do, what I build, how I act is a direct reflection on me.  It doesn't matter if the customer or whoever ever even sees my face or knows my name.

Everyone wants to be a doctor, lawyer, millionaire.  They want to be engineers, computer technicians.  Everyone wants to be the CEO.  What about the folks that make that company run?  Who's gonna do that?  Is it glamorous, no.  Does it need to be done?  You bet.

Now lets look at some discussions I've had with some fired up young Soldiers and NCOs who wanted to become an Officer.  The first thing I asked them was if they hated what they were doing right now or if they genuinely liked it.  Based on that answer, I asked them why they wanted to be an Officer.  Usual response?  More money and Officer's don't work as hard.  So I made a few of them shadow me for a while to show them what "we" really did.  Usual response?  Yeah, no thanks, I'll stick to this.  NCOs and young Soldiers ARE the Army and as an Officer, I needed every last one of them.  But they saw something shiny and lost sight of how important they were and what they were doing.  They lost sight of what they enjoyed about what they did.  They were proud of being an NCO, but not so proud to not look elsewhere.  The grass is always greener on the other side.

A caveat to that is some of them had put a lot of thought into it and gave me solid answers.  Some of them became Officers and some of them stayed NCOs, damn good ones at that.  No matter what route they took.

This country was founded on the notion that you can make your own way, with your own hands and better yourself.  Education was valued because it makes you a better person who is more capable or making a contribution to society.  Trades were valued and craftsmen were respected.  Be honest, who do you think is more successful, the guy with the big house who works in a bank or a guy with a big enough house and probably built that huge house?  My how times have changed.  What's funny is, that guy outside my office welding?  He goes home tired and dirty but he's smarter and makes way more than you think.

You are basically moving to another country where they speak a different language and have a completely foreign culture when you get out.  So yeah, to a degree, you have to step back and start over.  You have to learn so much and once you do, if you're boss doesn't wear a special helmet, they'll see it and you're moving on up the ladder.  All those things that you have been dying to show everyone that you were capable of, what the Army taught you, will finally get put to use.  Be patient.  Be diligent.

Another way to look at it is, you are trying to figure out what you want to be when you grow up.  Except now, you are jam packed with skills and experience and you more than likely have a lot more responsibility (like a family).  So there's more risk involved.  Work hard and constantly educate yourself (college, trades, certifications, READING THE NEWS, etc) and make that impact.  Don't forget to look at the long term.  Seek improvement at every opportunity and take pride in what you're doing and where you're going.  Everything you do, every job you have or course you take is a stepping stone to something better.

There truly is a lot of work to be done out there.  There are a lot of jobs, good jobs.  But for whatever reason, a lot of people look down on those jobs.  I see a lot of people that are unhappy at work and they constantly make mistakes and honestly, it seems like they don't care.  They do care; it's not that they come into work and say "I can't wait to mess something up again."  It's simply because they don't take pride in the work that they are doing.  They aren't realizing that what they do, what they make, is them.  The man isn't keeping them down; they're keeping themselves down.

As we speak, I'm hand stamping steel plates that are going into a new nuclear facility's floor.  Ok, well not right now, but you get the point.  Not very exciting but it's a part of a huge project that will benefit a lot of people for a long time.  When you look at the big picture, it's pretty cool.  I'm a college educated, world traveled, Commissioned Officer in the US Army and I'm swinging a hammer, all day.  I should be up front, learning sales, making spreadsheets and taking that next step to run the company right?  Maybe I am and don't know it.  But it's an honest day's work, it's kinda fun, it pays the bills and somewhere down the line, it'll make a difference.  So who cares.  In the not too distant future, folks are going to have hot water and be able to turn their lights on because I made a lot of noise swinging that hammer.

The point here is that it needs to be done and I'm the man for the job.  I'm proud of that.

On Homecoming - a Powerful Look in the Mind of a Combat Veteran

Editor's note:  On Homecoming is reblogged from Operation Zeus. This is hands-down the best look into the mind and emotions of The New American Veteran and should be required reading for every citizen of the United States.  I've reformatted it for readability but have not changed the content.  Warning - it does contain strong language.

ON HOMECOMING

Coming home on leave (16 days at home about 2 times a year) was always fantastic, it really made me appreciate the world I lived in. After shit hit the fan in 2007, on a 15 month deployment where 8 dudes from my 30 man platoon got killed, and I got out, coming home for good, it wasn’t so nice. 

I moved back in with my mom (I was stationed in Germany), and had no idea what to do. Like 30 grand in the bank since I couldn’t really spend money deployed for 15 months, and absolutely no direction or desire. My mom called me out on being drunk for literally the first two days I was home, I mean not sleeping at all, I just stayed up all night, smoked cigarettes, and drank beer and 40s while looking at pictures of my friends who were still in, and those who died. She heard me sobbing at like 3 in the morning and came and sat with me, but I didn’t want her to, I didn’t want any relationships with anybody. I immediately missed everyone I served with. 

So I started sleeping and eating, and not being drunk EVERY day, but I didn’t know what to do. 23 or 24 years old, no one was around to tell me what to do anymore, and it sucked. I was depressed all the time, I couldn’t connect with my childhood and high school friends because we were so drastically different. I spent most nights driving two cities away, about 40 minutes, and getting shit faced until last call. Not trying to pick up girls, not having fun, just sitting at a bar drinking nonstop and playing pool with myself, then I would drive back home and go to sleep. I woke up after noon almost every day. 

Eventually I got pinched for a “Super Extreme DUI” (an Arizona thing) which netted me 45 days in jail and a total cost of about 9,000 dollars. I don’t remember if I was suicidal, but I had absolutely no emotion for anything going on in the world around me. 

I took drives to Oklahoma, where my buddy I told you about was from, and found solace in hanging out with his girlfriend, friends, and family (I didn’t move in on his girlfriend or anything, we were just friends). Being back home in Arizona was worse after going to Oklahoma. I tracked down two guys I served with who lived in North Carolina, and I threw everything I owned in my car, and drove across the country to live closer to them. I lived on my friend’s couch in West Virginia for about a week, but got burnt out by seeing him deal with his state job and his newly bought house, so I left him there. Made it to North Carolina, and my friends helped get me on track with college, I picked up a girlfriend, and lived in my buddy’s living room for about a year while I tried to figure everything out. 

Now, years later, I’m 5 classes from a BA in Communication Studies, and I still don’t really know what to do. I still drink a lot and have severe anger issues. I was a happy guy before Baghdad. So it sucks, man. 

I’m reflective enough to know that a lot of dudes like me lost any potential they may have had, depending on their time in the service. It’s not just that “war is ugly,” it’s so much more dynamic than that. No one I served with, no one I liked anyway, believed in the mission or the war, we just wanted to stay alive and go back home. A couple of us had been to Iraq two years earlier, and in 12 months we didn’t have to kill anybody. So we were like “Good. They left us alone, we’ll leave them alone.” But when we got to Baghdad the motherfuckers wouldn’t leave us alone. We weren’t kicking down doors or harassing people. We were just driving around for our patrols, checking out the city and talking to people, then going back to the base to jerk off, listen to music, sleep, and wait for the deployment to end. 

Then the bastards started killing us. 

First guy got shot in the back by a sniper, getting back into the hum vee to end the patrol. We cried, we learned to be more careful, and we learned that it wasn’t going to be the same. 

Then the fucking IEDs started coming. 

Dudes would dig big ass holes and stick hundreds of pounds of explosives in them, and we would drive over them and experience mass casualties. A guy laying in the road with no legs, his still booted and clothed legs lying on the curb a few feet away from him, and dudes full of shrapnel holes laying in the street, calmly saying “get me the fuck out of here,” through dirty, bloody grimaces. 

No Saving Private Ryan bullshit where dudes are hysterical, screaming for their mothers. Just wincing back tears, trying to look tough, even though a leg, or an arm was mangled like a plate of spaghetti, and they were completely defenseless. 18 year old guys, 19 year olds. Fucking teenagers, bleeding and dying in the streets. 

Anyway, we started to get mad. We started to hate the people for not warning us about bombs in the road, for not giving us info on the assholes who were hurting us. The Iraqis wouldn’t help us, and they wouldn’t help themselves. They just wanted to be left alone. But when your friends die in pieces, you get angry, you want blood, vengeance. It’s not about politics, nations, patriotism, revelry, or anything other than cold revenge. And we were armed to dish out that vengeance.

Unfortunately, we were fighting ghosts. We hardly ever got to kill our killers, so we had to pent up our anger and wait for an opportunity to release it. My platoon eventually quit, after one of our Bradleys (it’s like a tank, only a bunch of guys sit in the back of it) got flipped upside down, ripped in half, and killed all 5 of our soldiers inside of it. The driver burned alive, some dudes said they heard him screaming as they tried to get through the flames to save him. After that, my platoon quit. 

We told our leadership, straight up, “If you send us back into that city, we are going to kill everyone we see. We will go if you let us do that, but we are not going if you will not let us.” We all got punished, split apart, sent to other units. 

All our brotherhood and camaraderie was ripped from us. 

Then we got back to Germany. Then, guys like me, got out of the Army and went home for good, alone. Went home and took all that anger, all that resent, and all that fucking loss. It’s still there. It waits for a driver to cut us off, or some college kid to bitch about the war, then it comes out. 

Some of us drink to control it, to soothe it, to keep it at bay, but at a certain point alcohol just fucking amplifies it. Then, we do things like break our hand on a street sign, beat the shit out of some punk kid for saying something ignorant, or shooting a hole in our apartment wall because we were too drunk and nihilistic to give a fuck if the gun was loaded or not, sometimes it gets us into fights where we wake up in the street outside the bar after being choked out. 

Some guys kill themselves. Some keep themselves occupied with wives and kids, or 60 hour work weeks. Some of us just slip through life, hoping to be left alone. 

On Normandy Beach, when the Germans mowed down soldier’s buddies, the soldiers could take all their anger and frustration up the beach and throw it in the enemy’s face; they had a release. Our war doesn’t typically give us that, and it fucking sucks. It is crippling. so we survive. 

If you’re still with me here, there’s the short answer: Coming home sucks, and we just try to get by and act like everyone else.

— Words and image by anonymous (printed with author's permission)