(bugle playing) ♪ ♪ ROY SCRANTON: When you're in the military, you know who you are.

You wear it on your, on your chest, right?

It's on your collar.

You go into the civilian world and suddenly you don't know who you are.

You don't know where you're going.

You have to decide, you have to build up your own identity.

(car horns honking) ♪ ♪ Getting out of the Army, I moved to New York and it was difficult to know how to tell people I'd been a veteran, or when, or why.

I was worried that they would think I was traumatized, or that they would get weird about the politics, or thank me for my service in this intense way.

It really felt like I had to figure out a new way to be in the world.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ J.R. MARTINEZ: Being a veteran means you have finished your military service.

You've put away your uniform.

You belong, once again, to civilian society.

But it's not always easy.

MARTINEZ: My name is J.R. Martinez and I'm a veteran of the Iraq War.

My first month in country, my Humvee hit a roadside bomb, and I was lucky to survive.

Today, I'm a motivational speaker, and an actor who played a veteran on TV.

(on television): Frankie, we are lucky that we made it home.

(voiceover): I even did a stint on "Dancing with the Stars."

(cheers and applause) It's been a long time since I got back from the war, and every day something reminds me that veterans and civilians belong to two different worlds.

You know civilians, we don't think about our military.

I've been a veteran for 12 years, and in that time, I've learned that after the ribbons have been cut, and after the crowds go home, that stuff goes away.

Becoming a veteran means coming to terms with our military experience, with civilians, and with ourselves.

♪ ♪ Being a veteran is like speaking a different language.

I remember being in the little hospital that I worked in.

I was in this patient's room, and she said to me, (gasps) "Edie, I heard you were a nurse in Vietnam.

What was it like?"

And I stood there... and I turned around, and I walked out.

There is no way you can explain, in three minutes, what it was like.

So you don't say anything.

♪ ♪ DUERY FELTON, JR.: What I found so strange is those who went into the service and those who did not, we are two different realities.

I really don't associate with them, and they don't associate with me.

♪ ♪ MICHAEL JACKSON: I put the Marine Corps behind me, I put Vietnam behind me, I'm working at a bank.

No one knows I'm a veteran.

We went to lunch, five or ten of us, and someone came up with the idea, "What did you do before you worked at the bank?"

And so they're going around the table, and I'm sort of in the middle, I'm going, "Aw jeez, do I lie?"

I know these people, I like them, they like me.

So it gets my turn and I say, "I was a lieutenant in Vietnam."

One sentence.

Before that, everyone was laughing and joking at what people were doing.

Total silence, no one said another word.

And I realized that even with a group of friends, I can't say one sentence about what I did for four years.

I felt bad for them, that I put them in a difficult place, I made it uncomfortable for them.

And, and we were friends after that, but it was never really the same.

ANURADHA BHAGWATI: The people who understand me the most are veterans.

Some of these veterans, I have very little in common with, these big, burly white dudes who are packing concealed weapons, you know?

Like, this is, these are my brothers.

(laughs) Like, this is... they don't look like me at all but, like, there's such a tenderness.

There's no, "Oh, like, you're a tiny brown woman" B.S.

Like no, actually, we kind of get one another.

(laughs) JEFF MELLINGER: There's things that I don't know that I could say to anybody that wasn't there, that doesn't have that shared experience.

I've got some friends of 30, 40 years that, right now, I could call them in the middle of the night and say, "Dude, how you doing?

"I'm just thinking about something, you got a minute?"

They might yell at me tomorrow, but right now they're going to listen.

♪ ♪ CLIFTON HICKS: The Army was not for me, but there's a bond that you can't get away from.

When we get around each other, you know, you do, you understand each other.

And, you know, you're able to be comfortable around each other in a way that is different than you would be around other people.

I sort of liken it to, you know, guys who were in prison together.

It's a similar traumatic thing.

(engine starting) MARTINEZ: I was a frontline infantryman in the U.S. Army.

April 5, 2003, was just another patrol on the outskirts of Karbala.

Until it wasn't.

(explosion) I suffered third-degree burns all over my body.

Recovering meant surgery after surgery.

Skin grafts that left me with a face I didn't recognize in the mirror.

It is impossible for me to hide the fact that I am a veteran.

I feel like people put me in a box and label me.

It is inevitable that they ask me about my injuries.

KIRSTIE ENNIS: Walking down the street, you know, people see my leg all the time, and they'll assume, well, you know, "You must have been in the military, thank you for your service," and don't get me wrong, like, I think "Thank you for your service" is great, but I don't think people understand why they're thanking people.

NICK IRVING: When someone says "Thank you for your service," I feel appreciative, but I feel that it only goes bumper-sticker deep.

People would say it just because it was the thing to do.

CJ SCARLET: I know some veterans have difficulty with the "Thank you for your service" comments.

I don't understand why.

I think it's a way of honoring the military.

I think it's a way of showing respect for the sacrifices that military members and veterans have made for their country.

KELLY WADSWORTH: For me, "Thank you for your service" feels very socially awkward.

When you're thanking me, you don't actually know what you're thanking me for.

I participated in a war where children died.

Are you thanking me for that?

I participated in a war that I, that I have some moral questions about.

Like, what is the part that you're thanking me for, because I'm not sure, I'm not sure the good parts can be parsed out from the bad parts.

Like, they all come together in a package.

(shutter flash) MARTINEZ: Back in 1864, a minister named E.B.

Hillard set out to track down the surviving soldiers from the American Revolution.

He found only seven left.

"History lives only in the persons who created it," Hillard remarked.

Men like Samuel Downing, Alexander Milliner, and 105-year-old Lemuel Cook, who had witnessed the British surrender at Yorktown.

They were finally hailed as heroes.

But for most of their lives, they had been largely overlooked.

JENNY PACANOWSKI: I was so sick of people asking me if I was someone's girlfriend or someone's wife, and why did I care so much about veterans' issues?

I had one woman walk into a room, and she literally reached across me to thank the guy next to me for his service, not that I want to be thanked for my service, but don't, like, reach over me and act like I'm not even there.

And I was just like, "I should've got this tattoo on my forehead."

MIRANDA SUMMERS LOWE: I think society expects a veteran to be my father's age, and to have, like, a really cool trucker cap that has some patches on it.

You know, maybe like a VFW T-shirt.

It's probably the guy that, you know, runs the Fourth of July parade.

I think people who don't look like they're veterans have sort of a double burden where it can already be, depending on your experiences, a difficult thing to talk about.

But then you're also trying to prove it.

♪ ♪ ANGELA SALINAS: You know, Veteran's Day comes around and people look at me, and it doesn't scream "Marine," it doesn't scream "veteran," it doesn't scream, "major general," it doesn't scream "first Latina to make general."

It doesn't scream anything.

You know, it just screams little old lady trying to get her, her free donut at Krispy Kreme.

♪ ♪ Shortly after I'd gotten back from my deployment, my husband and I were out to dinner with a couple of friends.

One friend turned to the other friend and said like, "Hey, did you know that, you know, "Annie just got back from this deployment?

"She was going out with the teams and doing the, the direct action missions."

(chuckles) And the other friend sort of gestures towards me, but looks at, you know, the first friend and kind of goes, "She did that?"

And I was, I wasn't really offended, I was more amused, but I was like, "She's sitting right here, and she can hear you, and yes, she did that."

Like, not everybody has the crew cut and the clean-shaven, sort of stereotypical look.

MANSOOR SHAMS: I'm a Muslim and I'm a U.S. Marine veteran.

Even though Muslims make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, they are one of the most despised groups in the United States of America.

MAN: Mohammed lied to you.

You will burn in hell!

SHAMS: To see fellow Americans talking of my faith, talking of people who look like me, or who practice my faith in the way they do, it's really... it's, it's sad, it's, it's depressing.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: A Maryland man, Mansoor Shams, is on a mission.

He's traveling the country, standing on street corners with a sign that says, "I'm a Muslim, and a U.S. Marine, ask me anything."

SHAMS: As of today, I've taken this sign to half the United States, 25 states.

Where I've been able to engage conversations with so many different people.

♪ ♪ I was in Houston, Texas, and there was a man that approached.

He gives me this really, really, really evil look.

He says a bunch of things, but then he calms down.

He says "You know, I just read the first part of the sign, I didn't see the second part."

Pretty much saying he read the "Muslim" but not the "Marine" part.

And I'm like, "Wow!"

(laughs) But at least he's honest about it, right?

And I said, "Hey man, you don't even know who I am, "and what if I wasn't in the Marines?

What if I was just a Muslim?"

And he just looks down and I can tell he just feels, he just feels bad.

He says, "I'm so sorry, man, you're, you're right."

But the reality is he knows now that Marines come in various forms, and that can also be a Muslim guy who looks like this.

(parade fanfare) MARTINEZ: For much of our history, America has celebrated its military, but there has also been a complicated relationship with veterans.

It's one thing to thank us, it's another to try and understand what we've been through.

JACKSON: The only person who really knew... a little bit was my wife.

I met her in Chicago when I worked at the bank, and we're starting to talk to each other and she says to me, um, "What did you do before working at the bank?"

I'm going, "Here we go again."

I said, "Well, I was in Vietnam."

She said, "Dangerous place."

Two words.

"When were you there?"

"1967 to '68."

"Dangerous time.

What did you do?"

"I was a Marine combat officer."

"Dangerous duty."

That's all she said.

I knew she understood.

And she said to me, "Michael, you did your duty."

And that's all veterans wanted to hear, some acknowledgement.

♪ ♪ FELTON: I got drafted in 1966.

I didn't wanna be drafted, but you have to understand it was a different mindset, it was still in that, "You owe an obligation to your country."

♪ ♪ In Vietnam, I'm injured by a 52-ton tank.

I should not be alive and I know it.

♪ ♪ I came home, personally I just wanted to be respected, but it was just a hostile time.

Like other Vietnam veterans, I had to wait.

There were repeated comments of "long overdue, long overdue" as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington today.

FELTON: There was this pent-up need, and I feel that with the dedication of the wall in '82, it allowed people to release what has been, had been built up in them for years, years and years.

(cheering, crying, applause) FELTON: People were leaving objects at that wall before the formal dedication, and objects are still being left today.

They became part of the story.

REPORTER: In a ritual repeated at least twice a day, the park ranger on duty collects, bags, and labels the items that transcend the usual flowers and flags.

FELTON: They were collecting these objects and they were being housed at this facility out in Maryland.

They don't even know what they have, because none of them are military.

At the time, I was on the board of Vietnam Veterans of America.

♪ ♪ I pulled other veterans together, and we would come out there, and we would identify these objects and put them in boxes.

And little by little, they just let me have free rein.

This is a beaver felt hat that was left at the memorial.

They were very popular with the, quote, "hippies."

(interview): I wanted to be sure that everyone who was affected by that war were reflected in this collection.

♪ ♪ I look at this as being curated by the public.

They are deciding what is important to them, they're leaving this.

♪ ♪ I hope that I've done them honor.

♪ ♪ MARTINEZ: When I first got out of the Army, I felt lost.

I didn't have my looks or my uniform anymore, so what did I have left?

I'd been in the hospital longer than I'd been on active duty.

Now, I found myself questioning my experience.

KLEIMAN: For a long time, I had this weird cognitive dissonance in my head where I was like, "Can I really call myself a combat veteran "or can I say that I was in ground combat, "if the Rangers that I served with were in the room with me?"

Like, if I said I was in combat, would those Rangers say, like, "You were in the back of the strike force," or, you know, "You didn't fire back during a mission."

There's always, like, something that is more combat.

Sometimes you think, "Did I give enough?"

I was never even wounded... (chuckles) you know?

Should I deploy until I at least take some shrapnel?

That's what a lot of people think about-- "Did I actually sacrifice enough?"

SHAMS: You start thinking like, "You know, I didn't go to war, so, am I still worthy or whatever?"

You know, you start having these internal conversations with yourself.

But I served my country with honor, and I'm a U.S. Marine veteran, and that's it.

♪ ♪ (train whistle blares) MARTINEZ: Becoming a veteran means adjusting to a whole new identity.

Knowing that your country stands behind you can make that transition easier.

But we haven't always had that support.

♪ ♪ During the Great Depression, tens of thousands of destitute World War I veterans marched on Washington, demanding the immediate payment of wartime bonuses they'd been promised after the war began in 1917.

MAN: Makes me so damn mad, a whole lot of people speak of you as tramps!

By God they didn't speak of you as tramps in 1917 and '18, no!

(cheers and applause) MARTINEZ: After a two-month standoff, the government turned its own troops against the veterans and drove them from the Capitol.

In the end, the Bonus Army finally got the payments they deserved.

But they weren't the last group of veterans who went unappreciated.

♪ ♪ (plane engine drones) NELL BRIGHT: I served in World War II as a Women Airforce Service Pilot.

We were employed by civil service, because women had never flown military airplanes, so we were technically an experiment, but we were just so glad to get the opportunity to serve our country.

(engine starting) We did everything-- ferrying airplanes, some of them flew VIPs, some of them flew weather missions, some of them flew bombardiers.

We had 38 fatalities during the war.

Any time this happened, one of our girls would escort the casket home.

We were not allowed to drape it with a flag.

We were technically not military.

As the war was winding down, and a lot of the men were coming back from combat, we were told that we were going to be disbanded.

Congress decided we were just superfluous.

So we just went home and moved on with our lives.

We all pretty much felt like we had proved ourselves.

So we didn't think it was fair, but that's just the way it was.

It was such an emotional thing, and so you just feel better off just not talking about it.

As a matter of fact, my kids didn't even know I flew until they were teenagers.

♪ ♪ But we were very proud of what we'd done, and as we were getting older, we wanted to be recognized as veterans.

We had to really fight for it.

WOMAN: Today, we right a wrong, and acknowledge our debt to these great patriots.

BRIGHT: Finally, in 2010, Congress voted to give us the Congressional Gold Medal.

(cheers and applause) I've gone through a lot of things in my life, having lived this long.

And it was great to finally get some recognition for what we did.

It took a while, yeah.

(laughs) ♪ ♪ MARTINEZ: I grew up in small towns in Arkansas and Georgia, speaking Spanish.

My mom was an immigrant from El Salvador who sometimes worked three jobs to keep us afloat.

I thought a career in the Army would put those hard times behind me.

After I got out, I realized that my identity as a veteran wasn't just where and how I'd served, but who I'd been before I joined.

(music playing) SALINAS: For years, I wanted people to know me as a good Marine, and I worked really hard at not being a good woman Marine, or a good Hispanic Marine.

I just wanted to be a really good Marine.

It wasn't until many, many years later that I really recognized the power of what I brought to the table, because I was a Hispanic and because I was a woman.

I went to a wedding, it was a second cousin on the left, you know, I mean, we hardly knew anybody there, but it was a really traditional Mexican wedding.

You know, they get the microphone, and they were recognizing people that had attended, and my sister said, "You know they're looking at you."

And they said, "Lieutenant Colonel Salinas."

And so I got up, and I'm looking at all these incredible faces, and it was like my epiphany.

I realized that I represent everything that they invest in this country.

That I, I represented our culture, I represented our pride, I represented our honor.

That, to them, was the American dream.

I mean, if I can give somebody a little bit of inspiration and be that face that some next generation can look at, then I think I made a difference.

And so that experience reconnected me to the power of representation.

♪ ♪ When people ask me a question about, like, "What do you most identify as?"

my most common answer is "husband."

It's the most important relationship in my life, my marriage, you know, with my wife.

So husband is primary.

And usually after that, it's veteran.

♪ ♪ I was 20 years old when I enlisted in the Coast Guard.

I spent the first 39 years of my life as a female.

When I went to go see the recruiter, they asked me, "Are you a homosexual?"

and I just stared at the guy.

And he said, "Do you have a girlfriend?"

And I said "No," which was true at the time.

So I signed on the dotted line, I shipped out.

I made my peace with not being able to be out as a lesbian in the military, and partly that's because I was surrounded by closeted gay men and lesbian women, so I had a lot of friends.

For me, I could differentiate between who I was at work and who I was in my personal life.

The ability to compartmentalize was part of my military experience.

But now as a veteran and trans or transgender man, I could be more present.

MARTINEZ: When I was an infantryman in Iraq, there were no women in my unit.

Now, they can serve on the front lines.

I've also seen gay men and women earn the right to serve openly, and transgender veterans push for equality.

The military has to confront the same issues as the rest of society, but for some veterans, reforms have come too late.

BRANDON D. ANDERSON: Do I want to be seen as a veteran?

That... the reason I'm having a hard time with that question is because, I guess it's similar to asking a question about, "Do you want to be seen as a survivor?"

Right, I struggle to be a veteran, the person who was in an abusive relationship with a system that did not see me and did not value me.

Before I joined the Army, I was 17 years old, living homeless with my best friend.

And so the thing that I thought I needed more of was structure, discipline, and then having a place to call home.

But I served from 2003 to 2008, and the policy during that entire period was, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

By that time, I had fallen in love with my best friend, and so I had a double life.

And it was in 2007 I got that phone call.

I talked to my sergeant.

I said, "My friend has been shot."

He said, "If this is just a friend, like, I'm sorry, but we can't give you any time off."

And it was then that I told him that this was my partner, and that this was my fiancé.

And he went to go tell the commander.

My commanding officer said, "You should surrender your weapon and expect a dishonorable discharge."

I lost the single most important person to me to police violence during a routine traffic stop.

I, I wake up every day without him.

I will wake up every day for the rest of my life without him.

What I am the most regretful of is that I spent five years of my life chasing discipline and structure from a system that didn't give a damn about me.

♪ ♪ There were some pretty big reasons for me not to want a dishonorable discharge.

You don't get any of the benefits that had been promised to you-- college education, the G.I.

Bill-- but the most important reason that you don't want a dishonorable discharge is because you were not dishonorable in serving your country, that being queer and being honorable are two things that can exist together.

WOMAN: Order!

(simultaneously): Reach up and grab it!

BHAGWATI: I am super proud of being a Marine.

I loved the leadership opportunities, I loved the younger people I worked with.

I had to assert myself in terrifying situations and so I found my voice in the Marines.

But the real triumph for me came from being a veteran.

I was an officer at the School of Infantry.

I spent a year and a half training these Marines in combat skills.

We had such a solid unit.

And then I was assigned a lieutenant who began harassing the women in my unit.

♪ ♪ I immediately take action, which meant that I was going to make enemies.

♪ ♪ I was threatened.

I had to get a restraining order against the lieutenant.

I was blamed for the lieutenant's harassment.

He was not punished in the least.

He was promoted during the investigation, he was given command of my company.

And he stayed in for several more years.

And so I left because of that, because of ongoing harassment, because I saw sexual assault cases, um, swept under the rug, and I didn't want to be a part of that anymore.

It was, it was breaking me down.

♪ ♪ When I was in graduate school, I started meeting women veterans, mostly women of color, and they were willing to talk about harmful experiences they had had.

And I realized, okay, like, there's a lot that's broken with the military, and as a veteran, I have enough experiences and expertise now to actually do something about it.

So, we formed an organization called Service Women's Action Network, tackling the discrimination, harassment, and assault that women faced in the military.

And within months, we were invited to testify before Congress.

(gavel banging) MAN: Miss Bhagwati... BHAGWATI: The impact of sexual violence, on our military is profound, and the pain and damage to individual survivors is, in many cases, irreparable.

Almost overnight, the conversation changed.

A rare unanimous agreement on Capitol Hill.

NEWS ANCHOR: The Defense Department released new and immediate steps to prevent sexual assault in the ranks.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan announced a directive that makes sexual harassment a stand-alone military crime.

BHAGWATI: It was unbelievable, and while sexual violence is still a pervasive problem, people are more likely to believe you if it happens.

♪ ♪ I find comfort knowing that even through hardship, I was able to help other women.

It was also very healing, because the military itself never provided that healing for me, but organizing with women veterans, that, that was healing.

♪ ♪ (ship horn blares) MARTINEZ: As veterans were headed home from World War II, the Army sent every one of them a letter, asking them to take on a new responsibility.

♪ ♪ "You are being discharged today, it read.

"Your country is proud of you.

"and you have every right to be proud of yourselves.

"The nation, which depended on your courage "and stamina to protect it from its enemies, "now expects you, as individuals, "to claim your right to leadership.

"Start being a leader "as soon as you put on your civilian clothes.

"If you see intolerance and hate, speak out against them.

Make your individual voices heard, not for selfish things, "but for honor and decency among men, for the rights of all people."

♪ ♪ Living up to that responsibility hasn't been easy, but it's something many of us continue to strive for.

JO ANN HARDESTY: Service isn't a title or a position, service is just what you do to be a part of community.

I, Jo Ann Hardesty... (voiceover): I was sworn in January 2nd of 2019.

For the first time in Portland's history, an African-American woman serves on the Portland City Council.

SECRETARY: Hardesty.

HARDESTY: Here.

(cheering) HARDESTY: But I didn't run because I wanted to be the first African-American woman on the city council.

I ran because I was ticked off that we did not have the leadership I thought we deserved.

My time in the military confirmed for me who I thought I was.

Someone who would stand up for the little guy, someone who would be very bold in my language and my perspective.

And so it's about looking at my community and saying, "Can I make a difference here?"

TALK SHOW HOST: Talk to us about your process, how you've coped after coming back from Iraq?

MARTINEZ: I bought into this whole concept of service, I love being able to do something for somebody else.

When that was taken away from me, I felt, "Well, what service can I actually do now?

♪ ♪ (voiceover): I'll never forget the day a nurse asked me to talk to another burn victim at the hospital.

It was the first time during my recovery that I told the whole story.

Afterwards, I realized that I might be able to help others by talking about what I'd been through.

For many veterans, a new mission can make all the difference.

SALINAS: After 39 years in the Marine Corps, I had no intentions of working again.

I just wanted to cut the grass, I wanted to play some bad golf.

I wanted to just relax and enjoy the seasoned years I had left to give.

I was getting phone calls from Fortune 50 companies and just people saying, you know, "Hey, you know, there's a job."

The idea of working in corporate America and just where profit was going to be the main, you know, the main indicator of success, I mean, that just wasn't appealing to me.

And then one day I got a phone call and they said, "Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas is looking for a new CEO."

I will tell you I didn't even take a breath.

I didn't blink, I immediately said yes.

♪ ♪ The mission of Girl Scouts, which is to build girls of courage, confidence, and character, that just seemed like the perfect match for me.

I get very, very excited for our future.

When I was young, I mean, I was not focused on community, I was not focused on the environment.

(chuckles) I was not focused on anything but probably just trying to figure out what I was going to do tomorrow.

And these young ladies, because of their experiences as Girl Scouts, because they learn early on about their civic responsibilities, they're understanding that we all have a voice, and they have a responsibility to do something with that voice.

(applause) For me, I think there is no greater role than to be able to give back, and that's essentially what the Marine Corps, I think, really embedded in me.

♪ ♪ ANDERSON: I spent two years just being depressed, clinically depressed from all of what had happened.

And, um, when I was done crying and (bleep), I said, "Okay, where, where am I going to go, how am I going to spend the rest of my life?"

For what reason did I have an opportunity to continue my life beyond the life of my partner, and how would I get back to that?

♪ ♪ So in 2017, I founded Raheem, which is named after my partner.

Raheem is an independent service for reporting police conduct in the United States, and we use that data to influence policy and influence practices, uplifting the voices of people who are often forgotten, who are thrown away.

I got an honest glimpse of the world through my experience with the military, even when it was not the experience that I would have preferred.

It taught me much about myself, taught me much about this country, and it taught me that we don't live in a world by ourselves.

WOOD: After the military, I didn't really find a calling or a purpose.

Just trying to figure out what that new normal was going to be like, I mean, that's... that was really hard, you know, to deal with.

(cars honking, people shouting) And then the Haiti earthquake happened.

You know, I felt compelled to go.

I started just calling people that I knew, seeing if they would go to Haiti with me.

And, uh, eventually we found ourselves down in Port-au-Prince.

♪ ♪ Sitting in the back of that pickup truck, on top of gear, felt just like rolling out of the wire of a forward operating base getting ready to go on a mission.

This is generally how it's going to work-- soon as they're done, I'm going to go through and I'm gonna number the beds.

So we kind of committed on that first week or two in Port-au-Prince that we would try to actually build an organization that would harness the skills of veterans to, you know, to, to help people after disasters.

♪ ♪ We draw on a lot of the elements that veterans miss from the military.

Most of these folks, they join when they're 18 years old.

They have this pride in who they are for maybe the first time in their life, and they, they go to war and they come home, and they get a medal pinned on their chest, and people shake their hands in the airport, and thank them for their service, and then at some point they get out, and all of that's gone.

And suddenly they look in the mirror, six months or six years after they get out of the military, all they can think about is, "You'll never be as awesome as you used to be."

♪ ♪ One of the things that Team Rubicon tries to do is re-inject that sense of self, literally give them a new uniform, and a new mission, that they look at and they say, "I can actually look in the mirror every morning and I'm pretty proud of what I'm doing."

We started with eight volunteers, we've got over 100,000 now.

I have a lot of people say, "How can you possibly "ask these veterans to give any more than they already have?"

And I... my reply is always, "They need it."

"They need, they need to be asked to give more, that's what, that's what makes them tick."

And when people stop asking them to serve, that's when they feel like a discarded tool.

you know, but that tool still has utility.

♪ ♪ (hammering in distance) (cheers and applause) MARTINEZ: When I was starting out as a speaker, I only got booked for military audiences.

No one seemed to think I had anything to share with people who weren't in uniform.

That just wasn't true.

These days, with the military an all-volunteer force, there's not a lot of incentive for either side to talk to one another.

MAN: Attention!

SUMMERS LOWE: It's a lot easier for Americans to forget that we're at war.

It doesn't necessarily affect their family the same way.

I think not worrying that your son is going to get drafted makes a huge difference in that.

(indistinct chatter) MAN: You got a good ride coming up here.

MELLINGER: If this was 1968, we would have been out of Afghanistan ten years ago.

Why?

Well, most of America is not invested in the military.

There's nobody on the street burning the ROTC buildings and rioting and so forth.

But I don't think it's because people don't care, it's just not on their radar.

(cheers and applause) On one hand we are lucky to have a country with voluntary service, an all-volunteer force.

I mean, that's... we're fortunate in that regard, but there are all these unintended consequences.

You know, one of the things that we're seeing is that military service is becoming a family tradition.

You know, we're almost forming a warrior caste.

And so this divide, instead of getting closer, you know, instead of being bridged, I fear, is kind of widening.

(cheers and applause) MARTINEZ: I recently figured out that I've told my story more than 10,000 times.

I was 19 years old, I was in another country, it was hot, it was sandy.

I was tired... (voiceover): I've spoken to audiences all over the country, veterans and civilians, and the two groups are still miles apart.

What I've learned is that veterans need to share our experiences, to help the rest of the country understand what we've done in their name.

ROWLAND: My father was a World War II vet.

He had been part of the war to stop fascism.

My father was really proud of the military, he was really proud of America.

I kind of grew up in that sort of environment.

♪ ♪ There was a war going on, the Vietnam War, and I, I really hadn't challenged the war at all.

It only made sense to go talk to the recruiter, so... and that ended me up in the Army.

I was serving at Madigan General Hospital in Washington state, on a unit that was full of guys that had caught a fragment in their spine, and were paralyzed from some point down.

But the thing that really, really stopped my show, was not a single one of those guys thought that they had made their sacrifice for a good cause.

That was a wake-up call for me.

As soon as I got out, I went right into the movement to organize G.I.s against the war.

PROTESTOR (chanting): Hell no, we won't go!

ROWLAND: I realize that veterans have an obligation to tell their stories.

G.I.s and veterans oftentimes are the ones who can tell whether a war is good or not, who can tell whether or not things are going the way they're supposed to go.

Who is going to know better than the soldier whether that's true or not?

The truth doesn't make you free, it compels you to action.

♪ ♪ We are often just told what is happening from people we trust who we elect into office, and it's difficult to understand what that is, unless you are a part of the half-percent of people in this country who serve in the military.

And so if you don't have those half-percent of people having conversations with the rest of the 99.5 percent who do not serve, then there's no way they can actually be well informed about how we're spending our time, and how we're operating as a country, and on what principles we're operating on.

(dog barking distantly) SCRANTON: When I talk to civilians about war, I hope to help them think a little bit more critically about the stories they've been told, about what war is and means.

Especially in the U.S., we tend to tell stories that leave out most of the war.

We tell stories about Iraq, about American soldiers, we don't talk about the Iraqis.

We tell stories about Afghanistan, about American soldiers, we don't talk about the Afghanis.

PHIL KLAY: It's not just veterans who have the right and obligation to speak about military policy.

It's not just that we need to listen to veterans.

It's that we need to talk back, right?

At the end of the day, what I want is just for people to be engaged.

♪ ♪ WOOD: If our country is functioning as it should, our citizens should be really thoughtful about how and why and when and where we send our sons and daughters to go and fight.

Part of that responsibility is also in helping us to come home, you know, and sharing in that moral burden.

Every time I tell a story about something terrible that happened overseas, I actually feel like I'm unpacking part of that weight and putting it on somebody else's shoulder.

And people often don't want to hear those stories, because they either think, "Jake doesn't want to share that story with me because I'll never understand and I wasn't there."

Or they'll say, "I don't want to hear that story of Jake's, it'll make me really uncomfortable."

Too bad, it's your job.

You think you're uncomfortable hearing my story?

Imagine how uncomfortable it was living it.

♪ ♪ PACANOWSKI: For years after I came home from the war, my general state of being was anger, because I didn't get to do what I thought my mission was gonna be.

I didn't get to help people.

I ended up just being another gun in the convoy, which is not who I wanted to be.

Eventually, I was able to get rid of the anger by writing.

♪ ♪ I started to do research and be taught about rituals and how the Romans, the Greeks, and the Native Americans in these warrior cultures had a way to transition home to reintegrate into society, and the main ritual was storytelling.

So the community would gather, the tribe would gather, whatever the language you want to use is, and these veterans, these service members would tell their stories.

And there would be that moment of, I believe, connection, empathy.

We sent you there, this is the cost of war.

MAN: We were sent there to find the Taliban.

Instead, we found after we bombed the village, all that was left were children.

PACANOWSKI: I decided to start facilitating writing workshops for my fellow veterans.

WOMAN: I no longer need them to believe me.

PACANOWSKI: I think the biggest thing that veterans fear when they share something about themselves is to be ridiculed, or more shame, or more guilt.

One of the prompts I would give was, "Well, what do you want your community to know about you?

What do you want to tell them?"

And in that desert, my humanity dried up.

(voiceover): Writing and performing kind of gave me a bridge to civilians.

After a show I can just walk around the room and I see it's not just the veterans talking to veterans, it's the veterans talking to the civilians, or the civilians feeling, um, okay enough to come up and ask questions or have a conversation.

And like this is the communal moment.

WOMAN: I wish that anybody who is thinking about sending anyone to war, would hear these stories first.

PACANOWSKI: A very good reflection.

(voiceover): I'm really trying to break down that whole "us and them thing."

We had it in the war, and now we have it at home.

You know, veterans are over here, civilians are over here.

Well, how can we, how can we do this together?

♪ ♪ MARTINEZ: For me, it took a long time, but I finally feel settled in my life as a veteran.

I'm a husband and father now, and that day in Iraq is just one piece of who I am.

And the more I talk to people across the country, the more convinced I am that we are in it together.

ROWLAND: We all have an obligation to serve, you know, to pay back to our community, to pay it forward, to be the decent people.

You know, that's our obligation, all of us, and the fact that soldiers had, you know, went into the military is one piece of that puzzle, but that's not the only one.

BHAGWATI: In a perfect world, we would all be responsible for one another, you know, we would all be neighbors.

If you're not participating actively in your own community, how can you call anything democratic?

(chuckles) Like, how can you, right... Like, how can you call yourself a citizen?

AYON: Think about it this way, it's service.

Service to your community, to your state, your country.

It doesn't have to be in a uniform.

Get engaged.

Be part of this big machine that America is.

Then you can truly understand what it's like to be a veteran.

Raise your right hand, repeat the oath after me.

OFFICER: I, state your name.

(recruits reciting) OFFICER: Do solemnly swear.

Do solemnly swear.

OFFICER: That I will support and defend.

RECRUIT: That I will support and defend.

OFFICER: The Constitution of the United States.

RECRUITS: The Constitution of the United States.

OFFICER: Against all enemies foreign and domestic.

RECRUITS: Against all enemies foreign and domestic.

OFFICER: So help me God.

RECRUITS: So help me God.

OFFICER: Congratulations.

(cheers and applause) You know, when I took the oath I was, what, 21?

Um...

I felt proud.

♪ ♪ It's actually something that I've thought a lot about, because, you know, we don't... you don't swear an oath to a king or queen or an individual person.

You don't swear an oath to a flag or, or a patch of land.

You're swearing to the Constitution.

You're swearing, ultimately, to ideas-- democracy, freedom, equality, that we're always eating and regurgitating, and so it is an important reminder that being in the military, it's not just about protecting a homeland.

It's, it's about protecting the American project moving forward, uh, and I think that that's something that, that a lot of veterans take to heart.

♪ ♪ I was a member of the military.

I was a member of something that was bigger than myself.

When I put on that uniform, I represented the United States of America.

I represented the whole country.

And you know what, that's still who I am inside.

♪ ♪ MCEACHIN: The military made me what I am today, period.

I was in part of this great machinery, this huge and this invincible thing called the Army of the United States.

I mean just saying the words, "The Army, I'm a soldier," my God, it doesn't get any better than this, you know?

♪ ♪ ENNIS: I gained a perspective, and I gained values that a lot of other people would never understand, and it's all because of my time in the Marine Corps.

I'm forever grateful for it, I'm grateful for every moment-- the good, the bad, the miserable.

BHAGWATI: I don't regret anything about the Marines, I'm thrilled I did it.

I think it, like, opened my world up to realities that maybe I needed to be aware of.

HICKS: It seems like a whole different lifetime and it's something that I would not do over again if I had the opportunity to go back.

So the one thing I'm proud of is that I found, I found the courage to start being vocal against what we were doing.

MELLINGER: I don't know how to measure how it changed me.

I know there are some things that deeply impacted me and that will be with me all the days of my life.

There are things that I saw that can never be unseen.

There's smells, there's sounds.

I know in my heart of hearts I gave it everything I had.

I gave it the best I knew how.

HARDESTY: People see me today and they're like, "I just can't imagine you in the military," right?

And how wonderful that I could take all that learning, all that experience from the military, and have it just be who I am through every other aspect of my life.

MEEKS: I'm so proud that I served.

I didn't sit on the sidelines.

I was an active participant in history, and I believe that's what we all were, that joined the service.

We were active participants in history.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: For more about "American Veteran," pbs.org/americanveteran.

"American Veteran" is available on Amazon Prime Video.

♪ ♪