Hello, and welcome to Listen Up People, a podcast
of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social
Work. I'm Dr. Eric Rice, Professor and Associate
Dean for Research. Today, we're going to discuss
the needs of military personnel, veterans, and
their families. Social work and the military
have a long history. In fact, the Veterans Administration
is the single largest employer of social works
in the US, with over 18 ,000 social workers serving
the needs of veterans and their families. My
guests today are nationally and internationally
recognized experts in the needs of active duty
military veterans and their families. They lead
the military and veterans programs at the USC
School of Social Work. So it's my pleasure to
introduce Dr. Carl Castro. He's a professor,
the director of military and veterans programs,
the director of the Center for Innovation and
Research on Veterans and Military Families, and
the director of the Rand USC Epstein Family Foundation
Center for Veterans Policy Research. And his
colleague, Dr. Sara Kintzle, who's a research
professor whose work focuses on the experiences
of individuals who've served in the military
and the transition from active duty to civilian
life and who's currently the principal investigator
on several large grants here at the university.
It's great to have you both here. Thank you for
having us. Yeah, welcome. I want to start off
with asking a more personal question that I've
been asking guests on the podcast, which is...
why folks got interested in the areas that they
spend their careers studying and researching.
So maybe I'll start with you, Sarah. Is there
a reason or an incident or a passion that drove
you into working with veterans, the military
personnel, and their families? For me, it was
really the time in which I got my education.
have a personal connection to the military other
than my great -grandfather who died during World
War II. I did grow up hearing he actually died.
My grandmother, she never got to meet him. Her
mother got pregnant with her. He left for World
War II and he died during that conflict. And
so I did grow up hearing stories from her and
how that impacted her. But I was a freshman in
college, actually, when the conflict in Iraq
started. And at the same time, one of my best
friends went into the military. I was very interested
in trauma. I was getting a bachelor's of social
work. And my education and my interest unfolded
at a time in history where We had a lot of questions
about how to help people who were in the military,
who were leaving the military. And we didn't
have a lot of answers. And where we were just
really inundated with kind of the impacts of
those conflicts. And so I got my bachelor's degree,
my master's degree at just this really interesting
and important time. And that's really where my
interest came from. Wow. Wow, that's great. So
Dr. Castro, Carl, you are also a retired colonel,
if I'm not mistaken. How did you get interested
in this work? Well, you know, in many ways, my
work as a professor at the University of Southern
California is a continuation of the work that
I did while I was on active duty, because while
I was on active duty, I had the best job in the
world until I came to the University of Southern
California. This is the best job in the world.
But I was studying. soldiers and Marines and
airmen while they were on active duty, getting
ready to deploy to combat, coming home from combat,
deploying to Kosovo and Saudi Arabia, coming
home from. And so it was sort of a natural extension
that I would continue to study them as they leave
the military and return to their civilian community.
So in many ways, it's just a continuation of
what I was already doing. on active duty. So
now, since I had a wonderful transition, you
know, second best job in the world, moving to
the best job in the world. I think your response
reminds me of one of the very first things that
I want to talk to you about. You were talking
about people transitioning as they went overseas,
came back as people are leaving the military.
You know, you and I have had a few conversations
over the years about, I think, what I might think
of as some of the misconceptions that people
have about military personnel and veterans. And
there's a I thought about PTSD, suicidality,
homelessness, these are sort of the core issues.
But when you and I talk, you keep coming back
to this idea of transitions, right? Do you want
to maybe tell our listeners more about your insights
about the importance of transitions for these
folks? Well, it all starts, I'll try to be very
brief, because one, I don't want to bore the
listeners. But I take this very, very strong
view that the military is its own culture. And
there's a military culture, and then there's
the civilian culture. And when service members
leave the military, they're moving from one culture
to another culture. And they often don't appreciate
that. But all the challenges that you would have,
that Sarah would have, that anyone would have,
if, say, we picked up and moved to India, we
would have to figure out where we're going to
live, where we're going to work. If we have kids,
where are they going to school? Is my wife going
to work or my husband going to work? Where am
I going to shop for food? All of these things,
you'd have to figure out. People living in the
military have to figure all of this out too,
to include where are they going to get their
healthcare? Where are they going to get their
dental care? Where are they going to get a haircut?
All of these things that you take for granted
in one culture, you now have to figure out on
your own when you leave the military and return
to your communities. Of course, all of those
issues you mentioned, homelessness, suicide,
mental health disorders, these are huge issues.
So I don't anyway want to minimize those. Those
issues get compounded in this transitioning process.
So we're trying, if you will, move upstream,
move upstream and really prepare our service
members for, I'm not going to call it a culture
shock, but some veterans will even describe I
feel like a foreigner in my own country as an
example of this cultural shift that they're going
through. And of course, most veterans ultimately
transition fine and go on and major contributions
to the community, et cetera. So I don't anyway
want to say, oh, and they can't make it because
they do make these wonderful contributions as
well. Yeah. So what are some of you mentioned
as people transition from the military into civilian
culture, but there are other transitions as well.
Yeah. I mean, what are some of the other points
that are sort of particularly stressful for people?
Well, we know from like, if you look at the life
cycle of transitions for service members and
veterans. There are three time points that I
like to highlight. When people join the military,
huge, huge point of issues. It's where 25 % of
all suicides in the army occur within the first
two years of someone joining the army. 85 % of
all sexual assaults of women occur in the first
two years of joining the army, ex -joining the
military. Wow. When service members come back
from deployment, again, you see issues. when
they leave the military, the first two years,
and the data now looks like it even can go out
to five years, that's when veterans are the most
susceptible of dying by suicide. So all of these
sort of major transition points is where people
struggle, and I think it's for a lot of the reasons
that I just mentioned earlier. So understanding
the challenges around these transitions then
becomes central to intervening early or preventing
some of these issues from happening? No, that's
really that's really insightful and important
for us to think about. You know, Sarah, when
you were talking about your interest in getting
involved, you had mentioned a sense that there
was a lack of information available about what
was happening. And I know that you in the work
that you've done at USC have been the lead for
the study that was called the State of the American
Veteran. And this was something where you were
really trying to understand you know what's happening
and can you maybe tell us a little bit about
what that study was and what it was that you
were trying to accomplish with that? Sure, so
we've done on our team a series of community
-based studies that look at veterans in different
communities and prior to this one we had done
one in LA, Orange County, Chicago, San Francisco
and we find that they're really powerful because
we take a community, we do a needs assessment
of the veterans living there and it's It's really
hard to ignore when I'm looking at your community
and saying these are your neighbors. These are
the people you work with who are experiencing
these challenges. As Carl likes to talk about,
a lot of times people can ignore national data.
They'll say, well, that's not happening here.
But it also allows us to give communities tools
that are really specific to what veterans are
experiencing there. And this most recent study,
we did the first ever study of Southern California
as a whole. So veterans in Los Angeles, Orange
County, and San Diego. And we took every we had
learned from the previous studies and really
tried to continue to advance the thinking and
the knowledge. And in one area that we did that
really was thinking about military transition.
But these are large studies that focus on a lot
of different aspects of the challenges veterans
may experience. Well, you mentioned this transition
idea, right? So this is something that Carl's
been kind of educating us about conceptually.
I mean, what were some of the things that you
found in this study about transitions? Well,
for the first time, we wanted to take a more
in -depth look at transition. And Carl and I
both came to USC around the same time, and he
had been talking about transition previously.
But it was a time where we really focused a lot
of our work on that. You'll find that in the
previous studies. But we really talked about
kind of the things Carl brought up at first,
finding a job, housing, access to health care,
kind of those basic needs, which are where you
should start. That's where we started. And a
lot of the work that's being done today has been
built on the conceptual model and the research
that this team has done. And that work is important.
You're going to struggle if your basic needs
aren't met. But at the same time, we also know
that there's more to life than basic needs, especially
a healthy and happy life. And so we started to
take a look more at constructs that we thought
were also where we might be missing the mark
in transition, things like purpose, and meaning,
and identity, and how you overcome some of the
emotional challenges, like feeling like I have
to start over, feeling angry about that, the
rejections that happen, and really answering
that question, who am I now? And what do I do?
Well, I figure it out. Yeah. Carl, did you want
to add to that? You got something on the tip
of your tongue. You hear a lot of veterans. when
they're in the early transition phase will say
things like feel like I wasted four or five years
of my life serving in the military because they
come back and they like have to start over right
where they see their high school classmates are
now managers and college graduates and they're
like starting over in it, although in America,
we love veterans, we love our military, I've
traveled all over the world, I guarantee you
there is no nation in the world that supports
their military and veterans like America does.
And I say this, but then but veterans still feel
underappreciated, their skills being minimized
and having to reprove themselves all over again.
So these are the, you know, Sarah would call
these sort of the emotional elements of the transition.
And I think, for a large part, that has been
ignored. And actually, Sarah's the one that brought
that, this idea and this reality to attention,
where now other people are talking about the
emotional aspects of leaving the military and
rejoining, you know, American society. No, it's
really beautiful. I mean, you're talking not
just about our people, I don't know, succeeding
in the sort of the obvious ways, but you're talking
about how do you understand if somebody is thriving,
right? And I think that that's a really powerful
part of a social work lens on research is trying
to think about people as holistic and not just
as how many of these folks got a job, for example,
right? And with this in mind, Sarah, have you
had much traction sharing these findings? Who
has been? I know you mentioned that you had said
something about you have these specific studies
that are grounded in specific communities and
that you are able to share with those communities
that this is their neighbors. But what are the
constituent groups that you share these findings
with? Well, one of the things that's wonderful
about the work we get to do is that we have stakeholders,
veteran service organizations who are just so
interested in getting access to research, understanding
it, and utilizing it. So we have no problem finding
people who are interested in listening to these
findings. And we do that at many levels. At the
top level, Carl and I have gone to DC. We meet
with congressional leaders. This is a topic they
are very interested in. They're very interested
in using research to kind of advance what we
are doing in this area. after the study was released,
I gave over 150 presentations all over the country
on Zoom, just to interested parties who just
outlining the findings and how these organizations
can use them and how they can think about some
of these problems in different ways. And they
do that. They've really listened to what the
research finds and they wanna know not only does
it help them. serve veterans better, but I'm
also giving them information that they can use
to show the efficacy of what they're doing and
the need for what they're doing. So it helps
their funding as well. So they can say, look,
USC did this research and it shows that there's
a big need here for what we're doing. And so
just so beneficial. And that's something Carl
and I really value is that we want to do research
that gets to the people who are making policies,
who are seeing veterans every day, who are making
decisions that affect veterans and their families.
And we do a lot of work to make sure that happens.
Yeah. And I know, Carl, that you've gone and
done really outreach on Capitol Hill, right?
I think that so, I mean, and I know that you
also have this Rand Epstein Family Foundation
Center for Veterans Policy Research. What are
some of the initiatives that you guys are spearheading?
What kind of policies are you trying to impact?
Well, let me say this because you've mentioned
Dan Epstein, whose support has been central to
what we do. All of these needs assessments, if
you want to call them that, but it's really an
understatement because we use a very rigorous,
scientifically -driven driven, theoretically
driven survey in our research. So much of our
needs assessment community -based studies, you
know, we would publish in peer review journals,
et cetera. But we couldn't do this work. without
the support of foundations and individual donors
like Dan Epstein, because it's not a topic that
NIH or the Department of Defense or even the
Department of Veterans Affairs is really interested
in funding based on sort of how they fund work,
because they want to like foundational research,
you know, theoretically driven research, things
that are going to lead to direct interventions,
and that's not this kind of work. So it's In
some ways, it's this partnership of where we
use federal funding and nonprofit funding, funding
from folks like Dan Epstein to really drive and
leverage all of our underfunding to make a bigger
impact on what we do in the community. So it's,
I don't even know, you know, how to say it, you
know, succinctly other than. You know, you have
to figure out what is it that's needed and who
is the likely funder of that. those studies.
So we would never try to fund a study from a
donor that we should be going to DOD or NIH to
fund, right? We would go to the appropriate funding
agencies, but you know, from just their calls,
they're not going to fund the needs assessment
of a community because they want to do like a
national, they would like, they would never fund
a Southern California veteran study as an example.
They would want to fund a national study of veterans,
but they wouldn't be able to make the impact
then. at the community level that we wanna make,
right? So it's a different level of where we're
trying to drive change, but showing as an example
of how you can drive change, if others did these
needs assessments, and others, by the way, have
picked up and started doing needs assessments
of their communities as well. So I don't know
if you wanna jump in and add to that or not.
Okay, I think I wanted to ask a slightly, maybe
it's a little bit of a left turn here, but Carl,
I know you've been talking about now this impact
in the community, which is something that social
work values for sure. I think it's curious. You
had this over a 30 -year career in the Army.
You retired as a colonel. How did you make the
transition from that career into a career in
social work? Well, it's not as difficult as one
would think. Okay. As I like to remind people,
there are three great institutions that were
basically invented in the Middle Ages. The church,
the military, and academia. So I basically moved
from one middle age institution, the military,
to one in academia. People think they're all,
these are very different. But I guarantee you,
having been in both, they're very, very similar.
All right? it you know we have gowns you know
the church has gowns the military has their uniforms
we have you know the universe like so but we're
very informal but we all know you what are you
a full professor are you just starting out are
you a researcher are you just teaching right
so we have this hierarchy that we really pay
attention to you don't wear it on your collar
let you do in the military folks are very conscious
of rank, tenure, or professor. And so it has
these parallels. It's also occupations that you
have for life, tenure, the military, you retire,
priesthood's a lifetime commitment. So there's
a lot of similarities between these. And I think
it made my transition a much easier when I figured
that out. It's very similar to what I did for
33 years. And it's also, believe it or not, and
I tell people this, very, very top -down it can
be, you know, where few people making all the
decisions that other people do. We like to think
in academia, it's more collegial and participatory.
I will tell you, I had more input into decisions
when I was in the military than I do as a full
professor at the University of Southern California.
So it's - I think you just broke my brain. I'm
not quite sure how I could process that information,
Carl, although I do love the fact that you are
making the connection between these medieval
institutions and certainly there is a... a historical
reality there. And the uniforms and the rank
certainly, yeah, you speak some truth. You speak
some truth. Also, though, you're somebody who's
been really interested in transitions and transitioning
from one culture to another. So I'm not surprised
in some ways that you've thought about how is
this one culture similar to or different from
this other culture. One thing that I wanted to
also ask you, though, is the two of you are leading
these these big institutes at USC that are working
with veterans and military families. What are
some of the goals that you have for the work
that you're doing moving forward to try to support
this community? Maybe I'll turn to Carl, you
first, and then go to Sarah. Well, one of the
things that, and Sarah said this very, very nicely,
the big things people are focused on, homelessness,
suicide, mental health issues, physical health
issues. But there are other issues that complete
the person, right? That's the holistic approach
that I like us to really focus on, the whole
person. And I really mean it when I say bio,
psycho, social, spiritual. and financial health.
We always forget that financial health, even
in social work. But I always remind folks, this
is America. And in America, money is important.
And you know, so we talk about, do you have a
job as an example? But what we like to look at,
well, do you have a well -paying job? And then
to get to a point that Sarah made, do you have
a meaningful job, a job that you're deriving
meaning and purpose from? So having a job is
like an unemployment statistic or an employment
statistic, but we want to know, do you have a
well -paying job where you could live? And then
do you drive meaning from that job? So that's
like just in one small element, how we try to
take a very holistic approach to it. And I know
Sarah has thought about this as well. Yeah. I
think our biggest goals is we're always trying
to push what we think we know. I think with veterans
in the military, and this is probably true of
a lot of a lot of social issues, but it's very
easy to fall into narratives. When I started
my career, the big narrative was people go into
the military, they go to combat, they get PTSD,
and then they become suicidal. That's not really
at all how this population experiences these
things. It's very simplistic. Most people who
go to the military don't see combat. A lot of
people don't even deploy. So we try to think
about these problems. Are we really getting at
the issues here? Are we really studying this
as a whole person. And we focus on things like
sleep, pain, being in the military is hard on
your body. They don't really endorse the best
sleep behaviors and these things follow you and
they really impact your wellbeing. What role
do those play in the overall wellbeing of a person?
So we're always looking to challenge what we
think we know and dig deeper and to really get
at the root of how we solve these problems because
we've been trying to solve these problems. But
we're not seeing the outcomes we want, right?
So we want to think differently. And we're always
thinking about, how do we ask the questions that
are going to get us real answers to these questions
and really move us forward in getting to the
outcomes we want so that our veterans are living
happy and healthy lives like they deserve? Yeah,
I love the two of you just articulated trying
to think outside of the box about getting away
from these narratives, treating people as a whole
person, which maybe leads me to So the last question
that I prepared that I wanted to ask you all,
along with all the random ones that I threw in
there just for good measure, but the thought
was, when talking to civilians, when talking
to people like me that don't spend their careers
working with these folks. What is it that you
wish people understood better about the military
life or military experience that you can share
with our listeners here, just as even one or
two things that you that you want to share? And
maybe I'll I'll turn first to Carl and then come
back to you, Sarah. I get asked this question
a lot. You know, what what should civilians know
about people that serve? And what I first thing
I say and Sarah said, it's so much nicer than
I'm going to say. And that is make no assumptions.
talk to the veteran, get to know who they are,
don't make assumptions about what it's like to
serve. That's number one. Make no assumptions.
Two, you have to really set expectations for
veterans. Veterans like to hear, what do you
expect from me? That's a culturally driven thing
that for five, six, 10, 20, 30 years, people
always said, here's the task condition standard.
That's the expectation of what you want. And
veterans like that. I think, by the way, non
-veterans like that too. It's not that they're
unique, but veterans really, that's their culture
they come from. What do you expect from me to
do? What do you expect? In our classrooms, we
call it rubrics, right? We call it rubrics. And
people like rubrics. And even though you may
personally not like rubrics, I struggle with
them sometimes. But just set expectations. Beautiful.
Thank you, Carl. I would say for me, and I'll
just use military transition as an example, but
I think this applies to a lot of the challenges
we see in military populations. But when we think
of military transition, people always want to
talk about, well, what's going on here? What
is it about the military? What is it about service
members who are separating? And I think the basic
fact is it's just a very hard life experience.
Everything is different after you transition.
Carl's experience is not the norm. Most people
are suddenly living a life that looks very different
to the one they had before. And that's an experience
that most of us as civilians are not going to
understand. But I think we can think about a
lot of us have had times in our lives where we
woke up and something has changed profoundly
in our life. And we need to think about what
did it take for us to get through that? What
kind of skills and grace and support did we need?
And I think these are just hard experiences.
And I think we need to think about them like
that instead of trying to think about who's to
blame or who's deficient here or what's going
on. But, you know, reflect on your own life and
think about what if I woke up and everything
was different and I didn't know who I was? What
would I need? That's really what's at the root
of what's going on here. And I think that's how
we can have some compassion and understanding
and grace for what everyone is experiencing when
they go through this. That's beautiful. I want
to give you each a chance to leave us with some
closing thoughts other than my prompted closing
thoughts. So is there something that you Sarah
would like to have the listeners leave with in
addition to those thoughts? Yeah, I will give
a shout out to anyone who's doing this work,
especially our social work students who are going
into the military track to the students who are
thinking about one of the first things I always
tell my students is how important they are that
I went into. this career and this work at a time
where everyone really cared about veterans and
there was a lot of attention on it. And as Carl
said, it's not that people don't care about veterans.
Everywhere I go, people care about the work I'm
doing. It's just that there's a lot of things
going on in the world now. There's a lot of choices
to make about, you know, where you're going to
put your advocacy. And so I'll just give a shout
out and to all the people who are choosing to
do it with this population and to our social
workers, reminding them how important they are
for a group who are still facing the same challenges
that they were when I started my career, but
aren't really getting the same attention. Carl,
what would you like our listeners thinking about?
I would like everyone to realize that no matter
what topic you're looking at, whether it's mental
health issues, physical health issues, aging,
children, families, all of these topics, impact
veterans too. And I will just, again, using Sarah's
model, give an example. So veteran homelessness
is a major, major priority within the nation
and within the Department of Veterans Affairs.
There are about 40 ,000 homeless veterans in
America. In the mid -1980s, there were 400 ,000
homeless veterans. So we've made huge progress
in reducing homelessness among veterans that
we really don't talk about very much because
we don't have 40 ,000, and that's a big number.
But there's also a lot of resources put towards
ending veteran homelessness. If we can't end
veteran homelessness, there is no way we will
end homelessness among non -veterans because
the resources aren't even comparable. And so
if we could figure out some of these problems
in the veteran space... I think there's going
to be pathways to solving these problems in the
non -veteran space as well. So for those who
are listening, so why don't look at veterans?
I'm telling you, all of the issues that you're
looking at, you see the same issues among veterans.
This has been such a great conversation. And
I love the holistic and thoughtful vision of,
and just human vision that you've given. me this
today. And I hope our listeners have enjoyed
it as much as I have. So thank you, Carl. Thank
you, Sarah, for joining us for such a great conversation.
If you, the listener, want to learn more about
the military and veterans programs or research
on military and veterans, you can visit our school's
website, which is dworakpeck .usc .edu. And if
you have questions for the guests on our show
or want to support the transformative research
and programs at USC around veterans, you can
email us at listen up people at USC .edu. And
once again, Carl, Sarah, thank you both so much
for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Happy to
be here.