Rachel Gutierrez was an army sergeant in Iraq, but back home in Phoenix she leads a platoon. At 2:30 in the morning last Oct. 18, members of the 1st Platoon Phoenix gathered at an all-night McDonalds in a bad neighborhood downtown. Their mission was to comb the streets for chronically homeless veterans (who tend to sleep in groups but scatter during the day) and register them to get housing and other services.
This was the platoon’s first mission. Thirty of its members worked over the three nights of the mission ; there were veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Desert Storm and Vietnam, and one 78-year-old who served during the Korean War. The platoon members worked with the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness, the state’s Department of Veterans Services and Community Bridges, Inc —125 volunteers in total. The organizations drew a grid of the city and divided it between them.
Once on the street, the platoon quickly fell into military habits. “When we came across abandoned homes that were drug dens, we didn’t have to say anything, we just formed a perimeter,” said Gutierrez. “It happened naturally.” They moved quietly, separated by no more than five meters, using the standard military hand signs for stop or rally.
“It was 2:30 a.m. in a bad part of town,” said Alejandro Salazar, a Marine Corps veteran with three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, who is a 1st Platoon squad leader.“We had to be observant, check our surroundings, be aware of people walking in our direction and do a quick salutation to identify them. It felt good and familiar.“
“It was 2:30 a.m. in a bad part of town,” said Alejandro Salazar, a Marine Corps veteran with three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, who is a 1st Platoon squad leader.“We had to be observant, check our surroundings, be aware of people walking in our direction and do a quick salutation to identify them. It felt good and familiar.“
It was a cold night for Phoenix and pitch black. They reached a parking lot and switched on their flashlights — and nearly tripped over eight people wrapped in blankets, sleeping.
“It helped that we understood what they were going through,” said Luis Camacho, another squad leader, also a Marine with three deployments in Iraq. “We could share their war stories. They’re a lot more willing to hear out a veteran.” Over three nights, the combined organizations registered 75 veterans. More than 40 of them agreed to leave the streets for housing. In December, the 1st Platoon visited them in their new apartments, delivering food and Christmas trees.
Eric Greitens wrote his doctoral thesis at Oxford on how humanitarian organizations can improve their help for children affected by war. He is also a much-decorated Navy Seal with four antiterror deployments. When his service ended in 2007, he visited his former unit mates in the Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval hospitals. Many had lost limbs, eyesight, hearing — but the constant theme Greitens heard was: “When can I get back to my unit? When can I go do what I do best?”
They couldn’t go back overseas. But Greitens realized that they could serve their country at home. He founded The Mission Continues, with the slogan “It’s not a charity, it’s a challenge.” The organization offered post-9/11 veterans fellowships: stipends to spend 20 hours a week for 6 months doing something they cared about. Among other projects, fellows work with kids in foster care, build houses with Habitat for Humanity and do disaster preparedness with the American Red Cross. Many chose to help fellow veterans, training service animals for veterans with disabilities or teaching homeless veterans to ride horses.
The fellows perform valuable work for their communities, and ease their own transition to civilian life. In six years, The Mission Continues has had about 1,000 fellows. “But there have been 5 million returning veterans since 9/11,” said Aaron Scheinberg, who was the group’s director of strategy and research and is now a regional director. “Roughly 42 percent are struggling with their transition.” Spencer Kympton, the organization’s president, said that because of the selection process, intensive mentoring and stipend for the fellows, each fellowship cost the group around $12,500. “We came to the conclusion that the fellowship model wouldn’t work to scale,” said Scheinberg.
If a social organization is among the fortunate ones that achieve their goals, at some point its managers will say to themselves: “It’s working — but for a few people. That’s not enough to make a real difference. How do we get bigger?”
For some programs, the answer is that instead of paying professionals to deliver services one-on-one, deliver those services in groups, and have the clients themselves do it. After all, the very foundation of the The Mission Continues is the amply proven idea that helping others is healing — usually more healing than being helped.
Veterans are numerous, capable and eager to serve. Programs to help them lend themselves to this kind of scale. Individual psychotherapy can cure PTSD, for example, but this treatment will reach only a tiny percentage of people who need it. So Veterans Affairs hospitals around the country are experimenting with groups that teach coping skills rather than psychotherapy. Some are showing excellent results, and many of these groups can be led by lay people, including veterans themselves.
The Mission Continues decided not to end its fellowship program, but last year it added a way to reach large number of veterans: service platoons. In addition to Phoenix , former fellows in Washington and Orlando began platoons in October, working to reduce inner-city hunger and mentoring young people. Since then, platoons have begun in seven other cities, including New York. Kympton said that the organization plans to have service platoons in 30 cities by year’s end.
One obvious advantage of the platoons is cost. Any veteran who passes a background check can join a platoon — there is no expensive selection process. Only the platoon and squad leaders get a stipend; most are former fellows; the fellowship now serves as a form of leadership training. A platoon will cost roughly $20,000 per year, said Kympton. At 50 members, that’s $400 per member — less than 1/30th the cost of a fellow.
Outside of that meeting, fellows don’t necessarily have much contact with other veterans. Platoon members do. Natacha Castelly served in Tikrit and Kandahar. Now she is getting a graduate degree in social work at Columbia University and as part of her schooling works at the Bronx V.A. Castelly — who was born and raised in Haiti, and came to the United States to go to college — is squad leader for recruitment of the 1st Platoon NYC, which has so far done two service missions: renovating housing for veterans and building a playground. She said one of the big draws of the platoon is the chance to build the camaraderie veterans had with their units. “It’s the opportunity to be again what they consider to be a family,” she said. “People come in who would normally not have engaged with the civilian world.”The ability to reach more people for the same money is not the only potential advantage. A few years ago, the organization brought the whole year’s fellows together for a three-day meeting, training them in leadership skills, resilience and working in nonprofits. “But the biggest thing was connecting with other veterans,” said Scheinberg. “We had guys and women — some of whom were homeless, some dealing with really tremendous transitions, with PTSD, on all sorts of medications, just sitting on the couch and feeling lonely. At the end of three days we saw tremendous growth and change. It really rejuvenates their confidence and energy. We wanted to replicate that.”
Gutierrez said that in her Phoenix platoon, two members who needed jobs — one a Purple Heart recipient — got them through the platoon. “It makes a huge difference to be around veterans,” said Camacho. “It’s hard for veterans dealing with issues of PTSD, isolation or depression to reach out to members outside the veteran community. This is a group who knows what you’ve been through.”
The service platoons are brand new, so we don’t know if they will live up to this promise. There is research on the fellowship program, which shows that participants find purpose, connection and direction, and that the fellowship strengthens their families and relationships. But these are not rigorous studies. They simply ask veterans how they are doing before and after the program — there’s no control group and no way to control for selection bias or attrition. In other words, the research doesn’t tell us if veterans would have improved their lives without the fellowship. But it does show that the fellowship helps.
“We do have fears the quality won’t be the same with platoons,” said Aaron. “The fellowship is really highly controlled and high dose, and the platoon is low dose. We don’t know if it’s as effective.”
“It’s just about frequency,” said Gutierrez. “The fellowship orientation had this esprit de corps for three days. We’re getting there with the platoon, but we’re so new.”
Here’s what has happened to Gutierrez since she got out of the army in 2005: She had a second child, got her M.B.A. and started several businesses, including a construction company and a firm that sells and licenses patents and technology for the aerospace and defense industries. “Everything seemed picture-perfect from the outside, but I was really depressed,” she said. She was also dealing with the death of a beloved grandmother, her own divorce, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, chronic pain and autoimmune disease. When she assumed leadership of the platoon, she was just recovering from cancer surgery.
She heard about The Mission Continues from a friend who posted his experiences on his Facebook page. “I was already a member of the V.F.W. and American Legion, but I wasn’t really fulfilled with that. The Mission Continues was attractive to me because of his pictures and stories — it was being a part of a unit again.”
During her fellowship she worked at a transitional home for female veterans. Her platoon’s next project is to renovate MANA House, another transitional home. Gutierrez expects 100 volunteers — platoon members and civilians — to build picnic tables, a memorial park area, computer lab and a music therapy room. After that, the platoon plans to take the former chronically homeless veterans on an overnight retreat.
Gutierrez’s stipend pays her $1,000 every three months for what is essentially a 30-hour-a-week job. She has shut down her construction company, and is thinking about a complete career change, working with veterans. “Even though I’d be back at the bottom of the totem pole again I want to work in the nonprofit space,” she said. “So many of us have problems with PTSD and such. This makes us realize that regardless of what’s going on, we are strong enough to still serve others and motivate others with our stories and compassion.”
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