The Art of Manliness - #134： A Field Manual For Life After Combat With David Danelo

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:18.640 So since 9-11 and before, American warriors have faced combat in difficult and adverse

00:00:24.200 theaters with dedication, courage, remarkable inner fortitude, and our nation supports them

00:00:29.220 during their time in the fight, and we say, thank you for your service. It's become sort

00:00:33.620 of a common civilian affirmation. But what happens to these men and women when they return

00:00:38.600 from the battlefield? What's waiting for them at home? How do we assimilate these individuals

00:00:43.980 who have seen some of the worst things in the world, who have faced exciting, you know,

00:00:48.040 being faced with life and death, who've had this intense camaraderie with their fellow

00:00:52.780 soldiers, and they come back and they don't have that anymore? How do we assimilate them

00:00:58.100 into society? Well, our guest today is a Marine combat veteran. His name's David D'Anello,

00:01:02.900 and he wrote a book called The Return, A Field Manual for Life After Combat. It's specifically

00:01:07.260 geared towards soldiers who are returning from combat back into civilian life and how to make

00:01:11.580 that adjustment, whether they're suffering from PTSD or not, because there's a lot of

00:01:15.680 guys who they experience a letdown when they come back from combat to just regular life,

00:01:20.800 and they get sort of in a funk. It's geared towards them, but it's also a great book for

00:01:25.120 civilians to read. If you want to know how to help and reach out to your friends, your family,

00:01:31.860 who are combat veterans, and what you can say to them besides saying thank you for your service,

00:01:35.900 this book is for you. And it's also a great book for civilians, even if you haven't seen combat,

00:01:40.080 because the principles in it are applicable to anyone who's making a transition in their life,

00:01:45.800 and they're feeling sort of confused and sort of down the dumps about it. Anyways, David and I

00:01:51.200 discuss The Return and what we can do to help our combat veterans and what combat veterans can do

00:01:56.480 to help themselves to make that adjustment back to civilian life.

00:02:08.180 All right, David Dinello, welcome to the show.

00:02:11.340 Thank you. It's good to be here, Brett.

00:02:12.840 All right, so your book is called The Return, A Field Manual for Life After Combat. What's the

00:02:19.940 backstory of this book? Why do you feel like you needed to write a book for soldiers returning from

00:02:24.880 combat? Well, it's interesting that we decided to make the subtitle A Field Manual, because it's

00:02:30.580 actually in many ways the opposite of a field manual. And it was a little bit of a play on it,

00:02:36.040 just to say, you know, that there isn't really a guide or a how-to. And returning is something we

00:02:43.000 all experience individually. Like many writers, and I think that the true backstory of most

00:02:49.920 books has something to do with this. I wrote it for myself, really, to try to make sense of my own

00:02:54.360 experience and sort of as a compass of sorts. There's times where I've looked back on it and

00:03:00.700 feel like I'm, you know, a drunk trying to give sobriety advice, because I read it and I need it.

00:03:09.140 It means a lot to me to try to use it as a compass of sorts to put my own experience in context,

00:03:15.440 because it's not like I have this figured out. I know what has been useful for me and what I've

00:03:21.440 gained utility from. And my intention was to share that and to hopefully help others along the way.

00:03:27.860 All right. So you are a combat veteran, correct?

00:03:29.800 I am, yes.

00:03:30.520 Okay. And when you were making your transition from soldier back to civilian life,

00:03:36.400 you brought up in the book that you began to question conventional wisdom

00:03:40.160 of making that return, right? There's a lot of advice out there, what we should do with our

00:03:44.420 soldiers when they're coming home, you know, they need this, they need that. And there's,

00:03:49.480 you know, this idea, you should even question the idea of, you know, if PTSD is actually a thing

00:03:54.320 that's, you know, in the news a lot, or if therapy is helpful or counseling is helpful for returning

00:04:00.860 soldiers. I mean, what was it that caused you to raise those questions? Was it just your,

00:04:06.160 your experience was incongruous with what was going on? I mean, what was going on there?

00:04:10.160 Well, I think, I think first and foremost, I, it kind of is the, the lawyer disclaimer up front.

00:04:16.220 I need to, I need to acknowledge and definitely validate that there are many, many veterans who,

00:04:22.400 who, who returned from combat with very, very significant and very powerful emotional and

00:04:29.520 psychological trauma that can only be dealt with professionally or medically. And, and I'm thinking

00:04:35.640 specifically, and particularly of traumatic brain injury, uh, TBI is, is really powerful and it's,

00:04:41.000 it's, it's pretty difficult to deal with that, uh, outside of, you know, the, the, the, the power of

00:04:46.800 21st century modern medicine. And I think that, I think it's important to state that upfront. That

00:04:52.840 being said, I returned from combat with some shrapnel in my jaw and with the experience of a seven 1.00

00:04:58.720 month deployment in Iraq, but not with, you know, not, not, not with traumatic brain injury, certainly.

00:05:06.240 Um, and consequently, the, there was some emotional conditions that I felt and continue to feel,

00:05:15.520 um, about having been in a combat environment and then actually continuing to return to combat

00:05:21.000 environments as, as a writer and researcher, uh, or unstable environments at, at, at the very least.

00:05:28.000 And I couldn't reconcile my own experience with a lot of what people were saying because the social

00:05:33.820 stereotype of post-traumatic stress disorder is basically that veterans come back all screwed up 1.00

00:05:39.180 and that everybody universally, you know, we're going to thank you for your service while you're in.

00:05:43.560 And then once you come back, we're really scared to hire you, even though we know we should,

00:05:47.960 because we know that we've got to find a way to transition you. Um, but, but we're, we're concerned

00:05:54.960 about your, your psychological condition. Um, and there's, there's more about that too, in terms of

00:06:04.100 how previous generations in the, in U S history came back from combat in World War II, there was a

00:06:11.240 different type of combat transition that the entire generation experienced. And the rates of PTSD

00:06:16.860 declarations are really, really high right now, relative to, to even the past hundred years of

00:06:21.860 data collection. Um, so it seemed to me that, that in part, a lot of veterans were saying that the

00:06:28.280 emotional condition that they were having was post-traumatic stress disorder, but maybe it was

00:06:32.680 something else. And so I tried to come up with a way to describe that. And, uh, gotcha. And what are you,

00:06:39.080 you mentioned, you know, World War II soldiers, like had a process that was different. What was different?

00:06:44.020 Well, there were a couple of things that were different in World War II. Uh, you know, the old,

00:06:48.860 uh, the 1946 movie, the best years of our lives about returning veterans, you know, was, was an Oscar

00:06:54.440 Oscar winner at the time. Um, and, and it's a powerful film. And I think that that characterizes

00:07:01.060 a certain sense of exile that, uh, you know, that, that, that those three men felt, uh, returning from

00:07:08.600 combat. Um, but, but then, uh, you know, the whole society was returning from combat. There was a

00:07:16.220 universality to like, whew, we're glad we're done with this and it's time to move on to the good

00:07:20.980 times. Uh, that's not possible in today's, uh, in today's military environment. And, and whether

00:07:26.960 that's a good thing or a bad thing, you know, people can debate, that's kind of a separate debate

00:07:31.000 about whether, you know, everybody should go to war together, the whole society should be involved.

00:07:36.760 Um, I think that the reality though, is that soldiers and warriors, uh, I, I tend to use the

00:07:43.480 term warrior rather than soldier, just because it's more, it's, it's, it's more universally encompassing,

00:07:48.840 um, to, to other people, you know, anyone who identifies as, as a Marine or a sailor or an

00:07:55.200 airman who's been in a combat environment. Um, but, but any warrior who's returning to civilian life,

00:08:00.920 um, is coming back to a, to a culture with, with completely different value sets, even in a positive

00:08:08.540 way, the positive values are very different than the warrior culture.

00:08:12.560 All right. We'll get into those, those differences, that dichotomy. And you mentioned that, um,

00:08:17.040 a little while ago, the, this word exile, um, and kind of, that was a reference to Joseph Campbell's

00:08:23.860 hero's journey. Yes. Yes. Um, and you, you call the warrior's return to civilian life

00:08:29.820 exile. Um, how is it exile when they're, you know, you're going home to friends, to family,

00:08:36.760 the, you know, the people you love, but it's still feel, it's still exile. Why is that?

00:08:42.060 Well, the reason why I referenced, you know, Joseph Campbell's hero's journey is he, I, and I think

00:08:47.400 that the, the mythological aspect of Campbell, uh, who wrote a lot of what he wrote, uh, from,

00:08:52.800 from Carl Jung's archetypes as well in, uh, and then was pulled into this, you know, George Lucas

00:08:59.780 studied Joseph Campbell before star Wars. And it's kind of become part of the way that we understand

00:09:05.240 our mythologies and our, our stories of our own lives is you kind of have this calling initially

00:09:10.800 where you go off somewhere and then you have this adventure that changes you and then you come back

00:09:15.240 from it. And then Campbell called the last stage of that hero's journey. And he, he depicted it in

00:09:20.680 I think six or seven steps as the return and the first step of the return of any hero, you know,

00:09:28.440 in thinking of, uh, Luke Skywalker kind of standing around the campfire, uh, at the end of return of

00:09:33.440 the Jedi after he's slain his father. And it's kind of like, okay, well, what do I do now? Where do I

00:09:38.240 fit in with one's identity as a warrior is very, very clear. Uh, we are thanked for our service and we

00:09:46.060 are asked to defend society and go wherever it is that we're sent, but then trying to capture that

00:09:52.020 and pull that back into identity as a civilian, even with friends and family along, unless you have

00:09:57.680 a clear vision of what gives you meaning and purpose as a civilian, uh, it's, it's a difficult

00:10:03.460 thing to do. And then the exile experience is that war creates such a powerful sense of meaning and

00:10:10.400 purpose that when you're there, you know exactly what to do and how you belong. Uh, and that sense

00:10:17.000 of meaning and belonging is very difficult to transfer in a civilian context. Yeah. And is

00:10:22.220 that what makes it so difficult for soldiers to explain to friends and family? Cause like, I think

00:10:26.380 a lot of civilian friends and family, they might get frustrated, right? It's like, why aren't you

00:10:30.700 happy? You know, you're back here with us. It's safe. Um, I guess a lot of soldiers would say,

00:10:35.440 well, they just, they miss being with their buddies. They miss being that, that there's

00:10:40.340 that excitement, that sense of urgency. Is that what makes transitioning so hard?

00:10:45.120 I think there's, there's, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's everything is different for

00:10:50.660 every person for what it is that they're transitioning to or from in the one thing. And so there's some

00:10:55.320 universal themes. Um, but again, kind of the lawyer's caveat. I don't want to, I don't want to try to

00:11:00.620 make the blanket statement for every single veteran coming home. I think that it's, it's difficult for

00:11:07.260 civilians always to understand, okay, yeah, you know, you're safe, you're coming back home to

00:11:11.500 friends and family. But, um, you know, when, when you have your sense of identity invested in not just

00:11:18.840 your brothers, your comrades, your, your fellow, fellow warriors, um, but your own, the, the, the

00:11:29.720 personal power that's drawn from being successful in a combat environment is a professional euphoria

00:11:37.840 that can't be captured, you know, coming back and forth from the office. It's, uh, it's just,

00:11:44.060 it's a very difficult thing to capture professionally absent a sense of professional ambition,

00:11:50.380 you know, for men is self-esteem and you know, this, you know, uh, from, from your own work on,

00:11:55.860 on your blog and, and your, your deep study of manhood, much of our self-esteem as men revolves

00:12:03.120 around our work and it revolves the identity that's associated with our work. Well, you know,

00:12:10.140 uh, getting paid to kill people and break things or to prevent others from killing people and breaking

00:12:15.840 things has some limited value in civilian context. Yes, you can, you know, point to security guards or

00:12:21.660 police officers or, you know, any sort of, uh, protective agency. Um, but maybe that's not

00:12:29.180 what everybody wants to do for the rest of their life. Who's returning from war. And many people go

00:12:33.780 to war. Many men in particular go to war seeking validation of their manhood and their own sense of

00:12:40.100 masculinity and returning from war and finding a useful application for that sense of masculinity

00:12:48.040 derived from being successful in combat. That's what everybody's got to do differently,

00:12:53.120 especially in the American masculine culture. Okay. So what does a warrior's exile look like?

00:13:00.160 I know that granted that everyone's going to be different, but you know, what are some like

00:13:03.240 common, like, is it just like, is it depression? Is it, is it just being in a funk? Is it just sort

00:13:09.560 of existential like angst? What, what is, how would you describe exile? And I, you know, Brett,

00:13:16.300 I think that this is something where I, I do think that there are a lot of parallels

00:13:20.820 to civilian life because I think that whether you're a warrior or a civilian, uh, I think we

00:13:27.840 all go through emotional conditions of not knowing exactly where to belong, where, you know, we come

00:13:32.900 back and when, when, when you're in combat, you know, yeah, you want to get back home and you want

00:13:39.180 to be safe and you want to be able to, to, to see, to see your family and the people, your friends,

00:13:44.480 the people you care about that, that aren't there. Um, but then when you get there, everything

00:13:51.000 that you were doing, you remember it and you remember the feelings that you had that were

00:13:57.560 so powerful and the sense of meaning and purpose that you had that was so powerful and you can't

00:14:02.920 replicate that. So your world doesn't make sense. And I, I think that exile, as I describe it,

00:14:09.820 is just that emotional condition of not knowing where to belong.

00:14:14.000 That's really frustrating. Yeah.

00:14:16.300 Yeah. It's a frustrating feeling. So, I mean, what do you do to go about getting out of exile? I know

00:14:22.160 you, you don't, the entire book's devoted to that, but highlight some things that, that have worked

00:14:26.720 for you and that you've seen work in other returning warriors' lives.

00:14:30.960 You know, one of the things that, that, uh, that is taught, I almost said we talk about,

00:14:37.600 but because I think, I think you end up talking about this a lot in the, in, in your work as well,

00:14:42.820 is this, this acceptance of duality. And, and there was a whole chapter that, you know,

00:14:47.740 in accepting duality and by duality, I mean the sense that contradictory things can be reconciled

00:14:53.860 in your mind, uh, the yin and the yang of, of our lives. Um, uh, and, and, and a warrior has to

00:15:03.640 be able to, to find a way to capture whatever their own experiences in war. And, and, and I

00:15:11.220 mentioned it in the book, but it's important for, for, you know, civilians who, who meet combat

00:15:16.420 veterans to understand that every warrior's experience is different. I mean, my, my experience

00:15:20.440 as a combat veteran was pretty limited relative to a lot of the warriors returning, um, today in

00:15:27.140 the sense that I didn't do multiple deployments. Uh, many people coming back from combat, uh,

00:15:33.160 especially from my era in the Marine Corps, four or five combat deployments is pretty common.

00:15:38.120 Um, I know, uh, the record I know of is 13. Um, I know, uh, you know, a, uh, special forces,

00:15:46.800 um, veteran 13 combat deployments. And, you know, when you're, when that's your life, I mean, that's

00:15:52.360 kind of, that's, that's your day at the office, you know, that, that's, that, that, that becomes

00:15:57.940 a more normal condition for you to understand the world than, um, you know, uh, driving along on,

00:16:05.840 um, on the interstate back and forth to, uh, you know, back and forth to the office every day and,

00:16:11.300 and, uh, you know, just putting in your time, uh, doing your emails or, or being part of the

00:16:16.020 organization that you're part of. Um, that being said, so I, I, I call out warriors pretty,

00:16:22.920 pretty strongly in the book as, you know, if, if you're, if you just want to be back to war,

00:16:29.300 well then go, you mean, you can find the route back. There's plenty of, there's plenty of work

00:16:34.060 out there for warriors. And if that's what you want to do with your life, you can find a path to

00:16:38.960 doing that. But if you want to be back with your fam, if you want to be back in a civilian environment 0.79

00:16:44.440 and find meaning in a civilian environment, um, the way to defeating exile is through accepting

00:16:52.280 and finding that peace can be just as powerful as war, uh, only in a different way.

00:16:58.120 Yeah. Well, since talk about that, that duality, right? Trying to figure out how to have this idea

00:17:03.920 of war coexist with the idea of peace. And, uh, you had this whole chapter with these great, you know,

00:17:09.600 redefine, um, war and then, you know, sort of a counter, you know, counter definition of peace.

00:17:15.640 And there's some sort of, you know, what you'd expect to see, like war is masculine and peace

00:17:20.160 is feminine, but there are some things that you were like people, particularly for civilians to 0.82

00:17:24.940 be like, wow, that does, that's kind of a weird definition. Um, for example, war is beautiful,

00:17:29.440 right? Um, for most civilians to be like, well, no, war is ugly. I see it on the news. There's,

00:17:34.680 you know, bodies everywhere. It's destruction. How is, how is war beautiful? I mean,

00:17:38.980 what is the experience for a warrior that makes it beautiful and noble and the like?

00:17:45.540 Well, I, I wanted to, so a couple of things on that, um, that are interesting. The way that I

00:17:51.340 started that chapter in a research, um, process was I actually just kept looking up the definitions

00:17:56.380 of war in other languages. Um, so I, I, you know, I, I tried to look it up in, in particularly

00:18:02.140 in Western civilization languages that it, you know, had influenced, uh, the definition of

00:18:07.320 war in English, uh, derives from, from middle, middle German and, um, and where these words

00:18:13.940 come from. And so I stumbled upon, uh, bellicos and bellum, you know, as a, as a, the Latin war

00:18:21.660 and, you know, and it means beautiful. The root of bellum is bello. And so, you know, I mean,

00:18:29.340 the Romans defined war in the same way that they just defined beauty. And I thought, wow, that,

00:18:34.500 that's, that's interesting. So then I just tried to kind of go inside that and say, well,

00:18:38.920 is that true? Is that has, has, is that been true to my experience? And the answer is yes.

00:18:43.700 Uh, the experience of being a combat veteran and it's more than the, the band of brothers

00:18:50.020 thing. It's more than the, um, the adrenaline rush even of, of, of surviving a firefighter,

00:18:57.520 you know, a, a, a fierce, a fierce engagement or, or even a random mortar round that lands too

00:19:02.640 close. Um, the sense, the sort of sense of self-awareness that you have in, in moving

00:19:10.220 through fear on not just a daily basis, but a momentary basis, because the fear of death

00:19:15.180 is a powerful thing in any human soul. And so moving beyond that fear of death and into

00:19:20.320 this kind of psychological space of where, you know, you, you're, you're, you're beyond

00:19:26.520 that and you're just living and working and very much in the moment. Um, you know, I, I,

00:19:31.820 as, as I wrote about it, it's, it's, it's kind of this new age experience where, you know,

00:19:36.780 you, you don't have to read books telling you to stay in the moment because you're right

00:19:39.980 there. That's a beautiful place to be in emotionally and, and psychologically. And getting

00:19:47.300 to that place as a warrior, um, kind of makes you want to stay there. And that's one of the

00:19:52.180 reasons why, um, warriors, uh, often keep going back. Uh, many of, many of the people I know

00:19:59.300 who, who have done four or five deployments, uh, continue volunteering because, uh, being

00:20:05.660 at war is paradoxically a safe place. Uh, and being in a civilian life can be threatening.

00:20:12.220 Now, the flip side of that is, um, I mean, peace is also beautiful and meaningful and, and,

00:20:19.180 you know, anybody who's, who stood in the desert and watched the sunset, um, and just listened to

00:20:26.320 the stillness of silence in the mountains, uh, and seeing the calm peace of nature, uh, knows that

00:20:33.280 nature can be very calming, but nature can also be very violent. I mean, you see tornadoes, uh, and

00:20:39.660 there's, there's a certain beauty to a tornado as much as there is a fierceness and a threat.

00:20:45.240 Yeah. Well, who was it that said, you know, it's, it's a good thing that

00:20:48.920 war is so horrible or we'd learn to like it too much. Uh, Robert E. Lee, Robert E. Lee.

00:20:54.560 Yeah. Robert E. Lee's quote, it is well that war is so terrible lest we should go through

00:20:58.440 too fond of it. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's that, that's, it's kind of interesting.

00:21:03.520 I guess, I mean, that's, is that important for civilians to know like the, the draw of war

00:21:09.200 to warriors? I think so in the sense that, and you know, there's, you're a, you're a Hemingway

00:21:15.180 reader and, um, you know, what's interesting is, uh, Papa never, never killed a man except

00:21:20.360 for himself. Yeah. Um, he hunted and, and, uh, but, but the, the, but he understood some

00:21:28.940 things that were true about the nature of, of war and the nature of combat from his own

00:21:32.980 observation and experience. And, uh, and he describes the beauty of it pretty well in his

00:21:38.260 work. Uh, I, I think that I, I, I referenced that as well because, you know, we, our, our

00:21:46.300 culture kind of devours action movies and we watch a lot of, you know, there's, um, I I'd

00:21:52.440 been intrigued, um, by the response to, uh, American sniper is this kind of defining film

00:21:58.460 of, of, uh, the Iraq war. Um, and you know, I, I didn't, I didn't see it right when it came

00:22:05.920 out. I ended up watching it on an airplane recently and I was kind of like, eh, well,

00:22:09.540 I mean, it was, it was one guy's world. Um, so it wasn't for me, it wasn't like, Oh wow.

00:22:14.980 Yeah. That's, that's the way it was. Um, it was an interesting point of discussion, but,

00:22:22.280 uh, I think that for, for civilians to be able to acknowledge that there is a beauty to

00:22:28.900 war, um, might help, you know, get past those kind of uncomfortable questions that combat veterans

00:22:35.240 encounter of, you know, well, did you kill anybody or did you, you know, I'm what, what,

00:22:40.540 when people ask a combat veteran what it was like, um, they usually go in with a preconceived

00:22:47.000 expectation. In other words, somebody goes into who hasn't been to war, wants you to tell them a war

00:22:53.160 story or some glory story. Um, and somebody who, who, or the inverse of, well, it was so horrible

00:22:59.740 and it's awful and I'm so happy to be back. Um, and the truth is, is always much more complicated

00:23:06.160 than that. Uh, war can often be very boring and also very terrifying and, and all those other

00:23:12.280 things that I wrote about. Yeah. So, I mean, what, what can civilians do to help a returning warrior,

00:23:19.040 like help, help them along the exile process? Um, I mean, is there, is there anything they can

00:23:24.180 really do or is it something that they have to, you know, the, the, the, the warrior has to do

00:23:27.680 themselves or only another comrade can understand and actually help them with? Oh, I think, uh, and,

00:23:34.680 you know, you know, uh, from, from your read of the book that civilians and anybody who hasn't been

00:23:41.020 to war makes it, makes a huge contribution to, to moving a warrior or returning soldier or returning

00:23:47.940 combat veteran back from, uh, a combat environment. Um, I think the most important thing is a

00:23:57.620 capacity to dialogue in a way that, um, you know, in a way that a warrior can understand

00:24:03.600 and relate to, um, the, there's this, there's become this, again, this cultural American cultural

00:24:10.440 universality of thank you for your service. And it becomes, it's very much like almost the,

00:24:15.780 you know, it, it's, it's almost like, you know, like the catechism before communion where people

00:24:21.020 know. Yeah. As soon as like you see someone's, I serve, thank you for your service. Like it happens

00:24:25.240 like right away. And it's, it's, it's like, it's, there's, it's become this almost Pavlovian trigger

00:24:32.000 of what somebody says that you have to say to a veteran. And it actually, in my view, it obscures

00:24:37.420 conversation because it's like, okay, well now, now you have performed your genuflecting ritual to me

00:24:42.940 and now I can't talk to you like a normal person. You're, you're, you're distancing yourself from me

00:24:48.120 in some way because you know that that's the right thing to say. And, and, and it's almost become

00:24:53.000 something that you have to then get past in conversation so that we can just be like,

00:24:57.340 Hey, look, I'm no better or worse than you. I just, this is, it's an all volunteer military

00:25:02.640 and I volunteered for a number of reasons. And, um, you know, I'm, I'm just as interested in your

00:25:08.580 life as you are in mine. And I appreciate that you respect my choices, but you know, I'd like to

00:25:13.740 respect yours too. Um, and, and, and I think veterans who have a need for that adulation for that,

00:25:21.000 you know, kind of like, you know, keep glorifying me because I'm better than you. Uh, because I,

00:25:26.700 I'm more willing to take it on the chin because you want me on that wall and you need me on that wall.

00:25:31.800 You know, I watched that movie the other day. Right, right. I, I, I think that that becomes

00:25:37.200 something where that is just as much of a barrier in conversation. So to me, the first thing that

00:25:45.540 civilians can do to, to help returning warriors come back to a civilian life is, um,

00:25:53.760 respect, respect what it is that they've endured and gone through and chosen as a combat environment

00:26:02.200 and seek to understand it in the same way that we try to understand anyone's life experience. Um,

00:26:07.720 the, uh, to me, part of the importance is, uh, understanding, you know, beyond the politics of

00:26:16.600 war and, and, you know, I, I've, I've had this experience a lot of times where, where basic

00:26:20.580 geography just kind of obscures empathy. And, and it's, you know, it's not like I expect everybody

00:26:26.280 to know where Fallujah is on a map, but I, I, I do maybe perhaps wrongly expect people to know that

00:26:32.320 Fallujah is in the country of Iraq. Um, you know, and, and that's, that's just kind of in the same way

00:26:39.020 as I think that, um, you know, it, it's important for, for any American who's trying to understand the

00:26:45.960 black American experience right now to know where Ferguson is or Charleston is or Baltimore is and to

00:26:52.620 understand what's going on in those communities. Um, because those are things that are happening in our

00:26:57.060 country and that affect our civic life. Um, to me that, that's part of, part of what affects our

00:27:04.280 civic life as a society is that a decision to go to war, you know, it's not, it wasn't my decision

00:27:10.100 in the Marine Corps, whether we were going to go to war or not. I'm just a guy executing. Um, the decision

00:27:16.580 rests collectively with all of us and is exercised, you know, through our representatives and through

00:27:22.460 their votes. So know something about what's, what's going on, like educate yourself. I think it's, I

00:27:28.540 think it's useful. Or if you don't know, acknowledge what, just like you do with anybody. I mean, when I

00:27:32.940 meet, when I meet somebody who's from a profession that I've never had any experience with, you know,

00:27:37.280 I, I don't know what it's like to own a restaurant or be an insurance agent or do, you know, neurological

00:27:43.060 surgery or, or, or, you know, run a, run the art of manliness blog. Um, but I, I'm certainly

00:27:50.540 interested in what you, you know, the tools of your trade and what's a day in day out life for

00:27:54.940 you. And, you know, what, what, what's, what's your kind of ongoing experience. And I think that

00:27:59.540 that's kind of how that's, that's how we relate to things that we don't understand in a civilian

00:28:04.300 context. And to me, it doesn't have to be any different in a warrior context. You know, when a,

00:28:09.240 when a combat veteran, combat veterans are like all of us, they like talking about our work.

00:28:13.800 Yeah. One of the great lines you wrote in your book that, that stood out to me talking

00:28:20.340 about how oftentimes civilians don't really understand the experience. And there's one

00:28:25.080 of those, what they, it's sort of related to thank you for your service. Like when people

00:28:29.140 find out that you had a purple heart, it's like, oh, wow, you were, you were super brave.

00:28:34.440 Right.

00:28:34.780 Well, you know, I, I, it's just part of the job, you know, like telling me, telling me

00:28:39.100 that I'm brave for my purple heart was like, you know, telling Muhammad Ali is brave because

00:28:44.160 he got punched in the face.

00:28:45.660 Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I, I, that's definitely been one where, um, you know,

00:28:50.320 there's this sort of deification of, oh, wow, he got a, he's got been awarded a purple

00:28:55.480 heart and, you know, Ooh, it's, and it's, it's, it's like, well, Hey, you know, I mean,

00:29:00.820 yeah, I, I'm not, I mean, I'm certainly not ashamed of the fact that I was wounded in combat

00:29:05.620 and yes, it, it plays a role in my life experience. Um, but Hey, I mean, I don't think that that's

00:29:12.680 a characterization of bravery. Um, it, it's, it's just not to me. Uh, I, I know, I know

00:29:21.220 and have seen and am aware of many, many brave acts that have never been recorded in decorations

00:29:26.640 or medals and, uh, bravery, uh, and courage is something. I think that when we encounter

00:29:34.020 it and observe it and experience it in somebody else, we know it. Uh, and I think that that's

00:29:41.300 a much more powerful thing than, you know, anything that anybody wears on their chest.

00:29:46.040 Sure. Um, so you call in your book, uh, post-traumatic stress disorder, you call it post-traumatic stress

00:29:53.300 asset. How, how is post-traumatic stress disorder, whatever you want to call it, how is that an

00:29:59.600 asset into it in a, in a warrior's life returning into civilian life?

00:30:04.140 You know, I, I think that's a, that's a terrific question and that that's actually that, you

00:30:09.060 know, that whole last third of, of the book is really just trying to explore this thing

00:30:13.160 of, okay, well, if, you know, if you're going through exile and you reconcile this duality,

00:30:16.860 well, at some point, this condition that we're describing as post-traumatic stress, the reason

00:30:23.580 why I'm really, really big on relabeling the term disorder is because disorder is a very

00:30:29.100 difficult, I mean, think about the number of disorders that we have in our society now and how

00:30:33.700 we treat them. You know, we've got attention deficit disorder, we've got, um, you know,

00:30:39.340 conversation disorder. We've got, you know, every, we, we've, we've labeled everything a disorder.

00:30:45.020 Um, and you know, let's talk about attention deficit disorder where, you know, when you, I'm

00:30:51.320 sure you've read about this and probably, I don't know if you've written about it on the blog,

00:30:54.880 probably done some work on it, that, uh, so many boys today are being labeled with attention

00:30:59.960 deficit disorder for what's basically just normal behavior in boys.

00:31:03.700 Um, and it's like, really, they fight in class. Well, you know, I mean, homo sapiens have been

00:31:11.620 going through this process for a good number of years now and it's part of, part of the development

00:31:16.860 of, of male youth. Um, the idea of, um, post-traumatic stress being something that's pretty

00:31:25.260 normal. I mean, being something, so the idea that, okay, we're, we're, we're coming back from

00:31:30.020 this environment where we had all this meaning and now we don't, or we're, we've experienced trauma

00:31:35.540 in, in any civilian can understand what it's like to, to any, most adults, civilians could

00:31:41.980 understand what it's like to, to go through a major car accident or lose a family member or have

00:31:47.860 some, have some major trauma that you've gone through that you're trying to move through that,

00:31:52.300 you know, is going to change you on the back end of it. Um, and what we tell ourselves and that

00:31:57.840 is, okay, well that, which doesn't kill me makes me stronger. That's what, you know,

00:32:00.920 that we find our meaning in this, that we find our purpose in this. And so for me wanting to

00:32:05.940 relabel post-traumatic stress, um, I'm not trying to redefine this as a psychological condition.

00:32:11.180 And again, kind of the lawyer disclaimer, there are, you know, every case is different and there

00:32:16.580 are definitely cases where there is some utility and value in, in medication and in prescription for,

00:32:23.440 for post-traumatic stress. Um, but you know, I, I tend to think of post-traumatic stress as,

00:32:31.040 as a condition that you can leverage, uh, that, that, that feeling of, of my own combat experience.

00:32:37.420 If I, if I labeled my combat experience for the rest of my life as a disorder, then I'm never going

00:32:42.680 to be able to draw any positive value from it. And so for me, labeling post-traumatic stress as an

00:32:47.880 asset is saying, Hey, what you did in combat has meaning and purpose, and it can make you into

00:32:53.420 a civilian that in a way that not being in combat camp in a way that anybody's life experience that

00:33:02.220 they go through brings meaning and purpose to them. Gotcha. Um, one of the, um, things I love

00:33:11.440 about the book is even though it's directed towards returning warriors, even as someone for me, who's

00:33:17.880 never fought, who's never been in the military. I mean, I found a lot of the principles very applicable

00:33:22.260 to my own life. Have you found civilians like using your book as to help them within some sort

00:33:29.300 of problem, like transitioning from one period of their life to another? I have actually, and that's

00:33:35.700 been, uh, one of a positive validation, uh, of, of the book is that I I've had, um, a number of people

00:33:43.600 who have gone through different types of emotional trauma, uh, have reached out to me and said, yeah,

00:33:48.960 you know, this is, this is really good. This makes sense to me. Um, and the, the, my intention actually

00:33:56.380 was to be able to, to offer something that could connect the veterans experience to a civilian's

00:34:02.840 own experience so that you could, you know, you could read it and say, yeah, that, that I've been

00:34:06.900 through something like that, you know, whether, whatever it is, um, you know, coming back from

00:34:12.660 something, whether it was, was traumatic or beautiful or, or, uh, that, that impacted you

00:34:20.400 powerfully, um, in a way that's enduring for the rest of your life. And, uh, and then being able to

00:34:26.620 kind of draw meaning and purpose from that. Well, yeah, I definitely, I definitely wanted to offer

00:34:33.580 something and share something that, that civilians could read and, and feel an emotional connection with

00:34:41.680 and say, oh yeah, I get it now. Um, I get what it's like because I don't, like I said, I think that

00:34:47.220 part of this, um, the danger and of returning veterans is that emotional distancing of the

00:34:56.220 civilian world that comes from thank you for your service is also sort of like, yeah, but we don't

00:35:01.460 want to get too close to you. You know, we want, we, we, we want to make sure that you're happy

00:35:06.260 because we don't want you to be pissed off. But when you come back from war, now you're pissed off

00:35:11.060 and broken and disordered. And now you're messed up and we don't know if we can trust you with

00:35:17.740 normal stuff. We don't know if we can trust you with normal, you know, normal life. Um,

00:35:24.440 well, I, I, I think that, I think you can. And I think that, uh, again, as a, as a combat veteran,

00:35:31.120 my, my life choices aren't any better or worse than anybody else's choices. And I don't think,

00:35:37.340 I don't think I'm a, a better or worse person, just a different person. Um, and my life experience

00:35:44.340 is different than, than the norm of civilian, civilian life. Um, but we're all different,

00:35:51.700 right? Uh, especially, especially in America, our, our, you know, our culture is so powerfully

00:35:57.760 and beautifully individualistic, uh, that, that being able to understand each of our own

00:36:02.660 individuality, um, just helps us connect, helps us connect with other warriors, uh, and other

00:36:08.840 civilians.

00:36:10.300 So David, where can people learn more about your work and the book?

00:36:13.660 Um, my website is danello.com and the books are available. Uh, the returns available, uh,

00:36:19.860 on blackirishbooks.com is the best way to purchase it. You'll get the best deal there. Uh, but I've,

00:36:25.260 uh, I've written a couple of books, uh, other books as well. And all of my work is available on

00:36:30.040 amazon.com. Awesome. Well, David Danello, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:36:34.480 Thank you so much, Brett. And congratulations on your work as well.

00:36:37.100 Thank you. Our guest today was David Danello. He's the author of the return, a field manual

00:36:41.300 for life after combat. You can find that on amazon.com. Go pick it up. It's, it's a quick

00:36:46.100 read, but it's really impactful. The things he writes in there, check it out. You can find more

00:36:50.700 about David's work at danello.com. That's D A N E L O.com. 1.00

00:36:54.920 Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:37:02.480 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com. And if you

00:37:05.820 enjoy this podcast and feel like you're getting something out of it, please, please, please give

00:37:09.180 us a review on iTunes or stitcher, whatever it is you use to listen to your podcast. It'll help get

00:37:12.660 the word out. Also share us with a friend. That'd be the best compliment you can give me. If you,

00:37:16.520 uh, would share the podcast and tell them that your friends, check it out. Anyways,

00:37:19.900 until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

00:37:24.920 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - September 01, 2015

#134： A Field Manual For Life After Combat With David Danelo

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