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Photo credit: Amanda Even
school as students. (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2018)
The difference in age and life experience alone would create a divide between veterans and most students, but the military lifestyle causes deeply internalized changes in how people think and act that can carry over into civilian life after leaving the military. Consider this: “Core beliefs and principles learned through military service can conflict with the beliefs and principles underlying higher education. For example, following orders and respecting rank and formality may run counter to the inde-pendent thinking and informality encouraged in many classrooms.” (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2018)
One comment that I hear from nearly every veteran who willingly participates in a veteran-centric wilderness expedition is that they enjoyed being back on a team with their peers—people they can relate to and who understand where they are coming from.
“School can be pretty stressful, especially if it's your first time attending. From my experience, the life experience gap is wide enough between these two populations (veterans and non-veterans) to make relating to a lot of topics rather challenging.”
—U.S. Navy veteran and City College of New York student Jordan Garrick
Once you understand the population, try to see your programs from a veteran’s perspective.
Outings that I personally lead, and the way I train veterans who volunteer with the Sierra Club Military Outdoors, follow the Outward Bound process from start to finish and rely on community-based peer-to-peer rela-tionships and trust from the minute we meet. When this unique community of peers’ shared hardships are combined with the outing’s overall experience, we can create successful veteran programming.
Veterans prefer outings that are led by, and comprise, veterans. There’s no sugar-coating this—anyone who works with veterans will agree, and if you don’t, I’d love to hear why. I have personally led or participated in multi-day outings with hundreds of veterans, and I have never felt that a non-veteran would be as openly welcomed as I have been. The level of acceptance, emotional bonding, and trust within our tribe is unique, and this is important. The magic that can happen on the trail—what we know leads to a greater sense of belonging and lower sense of loneliness—must happen in just a few short days.
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