BTM67 Transcription

Welcome to Episode 67 of Behind The Mission, a show that sparks conversations with PsychArmor trusted partners and educational experts. 

My name is Duane France, and each week I'll be having conversations with podcast guests that will equip you with tools and resources to effectively engage with and support military service members, Veterans and their families. Find the show on all the podcast players by going to www.psycharmor.org/podcast.

Thanks again for joining us on Behind The Mission. Our work and mission are supported by generous partnerships and sponsors, who also believe that education changes lives. This episode is brought to you by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem, specializing in military cultural content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. You can find more PsychArmor at www.psycharmor.org. 

 On today's episode, I'm having a conversation with Air Force Veteran Cat Corchado, a peer leader, trainer and national consultant with the Women Veterans Network, as well as podcast host of The Sisters And Service podcast. Cat went into the military at the age of 22 and served a 20 year career before retiring and working as a fitness professional and personal trainer, as well as a staunch advocate for the voice of Women Veterans. You can find out more about Cat by checking out her bio in our show notes. Let's get into my conversation with her and come back afterwards to talk about some of the key points. 

DUANE: As a Veteran yourself, you understand the challenges related to transition out of the military and into post-military life. I'd like to hear more about your military journey and transition story and how that led to what you're doing now.

CAT: How much time do you have? My journey actually happened. I was a military brat, so I was born into the Air Force. My dad was already enlisted and I thought traveling around was just what you did. And it was just very cool because I got to see things firsthand that a lot of kids only got to read about or see on TV. Going down the road,  I didn't know what I wanted to do. Because I graduated in Germany. I went to high school in Germany and it wasn't like it is now where you're probably put on a track of, you already know what you want to do. And I had no idea. And I thought, okay, maybe I'll just go in the military. And I was going to go into the Navy because I thought their dress whites were beautiful and the recruiter, bless his heart, said, “Why don't you stay in your lane and just do the Air Force?” and I was like, “Okay, maybe I'll do that.”

 So I went in under delayed enlistment. So I enlisted in November, 1979. And I went active duty in March of 1980. And what I didn't realize is that January, 1980, the Air Force stopped single parents from coming into the military.

So I go to bootcamp, we're filling out all this paperwork. And my TI said, he calls me in the office. He said, “You're a single parent.” And I said, “Yeah,” he goes, how'd you get in? I said, I don't know. Y'all let me in. And so that's kinda how that happened. And I had a great career. My first tour of duty was Azores Portugal. 

I had no idea where it was. And this was back before cell phones, Google, all of this stuff. And I remember calling my dad crying. I said, I can't find it. And he was, he says, “”Do you have the globe?” Remember the old Globes. And he said, “Do you see those three dots? And I go, “Yeah” and he goes, “You're on the big dot.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” But actually in hindsight it was probably the perfect first assignment. And having spent 20 years in the military. So looking back was probably one of my favorite assignments. From Azores Portugal, I went to Loring Air Force Base in Maine, which is now closed.

So if you can think of the furthest Northern point of Maine caribou, five minutes from the Canadian border, to be honest. And even people from Maine go “Oof” when they hear Caribou, Maine. And from Caribou, Maine, I remember going into work and my boss said, “I have orders to Turkey who wants to go? And I said, “Is it hot in Turkey?” And he goes, “Yes.” And I raised my hand. I said, “I'll go.” So that was my third assignment. Great assignment. It was Incirlik Air Base. It was wonderful. And then from Incirlik Air Base, I went to Offutt Air Base in Nebraska for 12 years. My son went through the entire school system there which is also where I met my husband.

And from there, I went on a remote to Korea and from Korea is where we went to South Carolina, which is where I retired. And as someone who spends a lot of time in the military and I'm talking probably 10 plus years or more, and all you do is fantasize about being a civilian. Don't you? You’re kind of like, oh, it's going to be this. I get to do what I want. I get to wear what I want.

And then you come out of the military and I always tell people this story that I felt like that if you're a sports fan, that first round draft pick from college. Everyone is clamoring for you. And there was going to be balloons and music. People are gonna be clapping. And I walked out the door with my DD two 14 and there was nothing there.

And I said, do I have the right day? And I walked forward and I started this dive off of the cliff. I had no idea what it was. And it was that black hole that we call transition because no one talked about. Everyone that has retired, they're happy. They're smiling. They're wearing their jeans and they're just having a good time.

I thought this was great, but no one talked about this. And I thought it was just me. I thought, you know what, I'm doing something wrong. This transition thing, I need to figure it out. And I finally got my feet on the ground. I went into the fitness industry because I'd always had one foot in the civilian world by getting a little bit more money, because we all know that we get millions of dollars from the military being enlisted. And the part that really got to me, as I was a project manager, I was a communications project manager in the Air Force. And I went to an interview and the guy behind the desk, I swear he was like 12 years old. And you know, at the top, you put an Air Force Veteran 20 years and he looked it over and he said, “Wow, this is really great, but you don't have a degree.”

And I said, “Do you see those 20 years up there? And I was so frustrated because he just looked over it. Like, it didn't mean anything. And so I pivoted, I went into the fitness industry and I've been doing that ever since, but I still can get over this feeling of not being seen, of being isolated and feeling the isolation because I didn't know where the other Women Veterans were. Where were they? I know they were there, but we didn't self identify as Veterans. And so we were in Massachusetts and especially if you're not close to a base, the closest base to us in Massachusetts was five hours away. So if you're not around a base, if you're not around other Veterans, you feel that sense of loneliness and isolation.

And we eventually moved to North Carolina and I thought, you know what? I'm really going to get out there and do some networking. So I would go to all these luncheons and these coffees and all of this other stuff. And what the one thing I found was that it was heavily male dominated. So if there are a hundred people there, 97 of them are men.

Now this is back, let's say 2000. When we moved here, it was like 2008. And I couldn't figure out where the other women were. And I remember getting this email saying, “Hey, we're doing this round table discussion.” And it was about all these women coming together. And I thought, okay. And I go, and it was just, it was wonderful.

All these women from different areas and different services and different jobs. And we're all just talking and laughing and you know about our service and we didn't have to explain anything to each other, even though we're different services and sometimes things are called different, different MOS and all this other stuff we understood, we got it. And I thought this is fantastic. And that's how WOVEN, The Women Veterans Network, how I started in my journey through WOVEN.

DUANE: No, it's interesting, especially hearing that when you enlisted in the Air Force, it wasn't until the late eighties or the nineties that even some combat roles when you joined, there were no women pilots in combat aircraft or there were no women submarine commanders. So there were very few opportunities for women in the military when you joined. Even now I think we think women make up around 15, 18% of the forces but when you joined, it was probably less than 10. And so when you got out in the early nineties, there weren't a lot of Vietnam Era, Post Vietnam Era, Cold War Era Women Veterans, whenever you left in the early two thousands.

CAT: And that's true. There's so many organizations now helping Veterans when I got out, I think maybe there was LinkedIn, I think. But, there was nothing out there. I won't say there was nothing out there. I wasn't aware because the TAPS program. Bless their heart. They try to do the right thing, but it was nowhere close to what I needed. And so those organizations that were out there, they were just, they were either very quiet. They weren't advertising because there was nothing there. Now the problem is that there's so much out there. That you don't know where to start, so you kind of stand still and you do nothing because you're not sure where to go, what to do. What's the first organization I want to experience. So it's different. It's better. It's just different now.

DUANEL Yeah. I can imagine when you got out there were empty shelves. And now, the shelf is full of too many. Like you're paralyzed. One, you're staring at an empty shelf. I don't know what I'm doing, but now there's 15 kinds of cornflakes. Like I, I'm overwhelmed by the choices. And this was, I think a lot of Veterans. This pendulum, as you said, has really swung the other way of making it have too many choices in that choice paralysis. But again, really specifically for Women Veterans, I've heard it described where you're a very visible minority in the military. I had the honor and opportunity to work in my career field for 22 years with women. But a very visible minority in the military.

That you're one or two or three in a formation, but then when you leave the military, you become an invisible minority because in all of the 18 million Veterans, you're a very small subset. And that could be not just the challenges of transition. Like you talk about, diving into the deep, I refer to it as jumping out of the airplane into a fog, and you don't know where you're going to land.

You don't know how high you are, anything. But not only the normal challenges with transition, especially over a long career, you have the additional intersectional challenges of being a Woman Veteran. 

CAT: Yes. And people not recognizing that, even when I tell them I'm a Veteran. They just look at me and they say, “You don't look like a Veteran.” And I want to see where it says in the dictionary picture of a Woman Veteran and see if I match up because, and I'm still trying to figure that out, and people say, you don't sound like a Veteran. I'm like, what does that mean? So it's challenging whereas before I would probably back down, nowI'm informing people. Yes, I'm a Veteran. I'm the one of many faces of Women Veterans because even when I was in to see a female officer was like, oh, ah, cause we didn't see a lot of them. And so when you saw a woman officer, you're like, whoa, okay we're making strides. And even in my office, I was probably one of two for a little while. Then that one woman would leave and I would be the only female in the office.

DUANE: And that's sort of one of the things we all value things about the military, but there is a path, if you're an E1, there's a path to be a Sergeant Major in the Army or a Chief Master Sergeant, or, what have you, right? You know that there are steps that you can go. Same thing if you're a First Lieutenant, you know, that there's, few people who make it to general officer rank, but there's a path there. But if you look around and you see the people in those higher ranks don't look like you, you don't know that there's that path and that makes you question. Am I in the right place? 

CAT: Exactly. I never thought about having a career in the military. So first of all, I'm just going to backtrack and say, I did not go in this in the military servicing, I'm going to do 20 years. Very few people do that. Some do, not a lot, and it just happened.

And I knew that, to get more money you had to test and wuccessfully passed the test to get upgraded to the next rank and get, your additional money in your paycheck. I never had any inclinations of wanting to be an officer which is okay. I was happy where I was, as long as I made rank, I was okay with that.

But there were a lot of women who wanted to do things at that time that were close to women. Being combat or other AFS or MOS  that we're close to women. I wasn't one of those, not because I didn't want to, I just didn't think about it. I was happy where I was. I was happy doing my communication, so I never really thought about ever becoming an officer.

It was not my cup of tea because a lot of times the women officers were, how can I say. More masculine than feminine. They had to be more like the men and act like the male officers in order to feel like they could get somewhere, which I get it, but it was a shame that they had to act like that. But I understood the reason I understood why they had to do that. I just never wanted to be an officer.

DUANE: And I think these are a lot of the different things when it, like you said, people have an image of Veteran in their mind and in quite often, and actually most frequently when they actually meet an individual Veteran who has one of many different faces, than that Veteran archetype they have in their mind is often stretched. Now you mentioned your work with Woven, The Women Veterans Network. And like I said, I had the opportunity to be led by, to lead and to work alongside women service members for over 22 years. And I know and understand the contribution that women bring to the military. What can you tell us about WOVEN and why it's important to you? 

CAT: WOVEN is the one thing that we do to connect other Women Veterans. So like I said before, sometimes we just don't know where the other Women Veterans are. Men will wear their hats. They'll wear something that you go, oh, they're military. Even sometimes when they speak, you're like, oh, that's a military person. Women don't do that. We don't have our bumper stickers. We were, we're a little better now, with our license plates and stuff, but unless a woman is wearing something or she says something you don't know, she's another Woman Veteran and we're trying to erase that stigma. We do have, what's called a recognize her 22 campaign for this year to take the stigma away from asking another Woman Veteran if you're a Veteran. And I quickly became, right after that round table discussion, I got an email saying, would you like to be a peer leader? And I said, “Yes, absolutely.” I want to do this because it was just so refreshing to be around Women Veterans, because you don't know, it's like your club, we're part of this unique club that we don't know we're a part of, by the way, when we come out of the military. And you're part of this very unique club and it isn't until you get with these other Women Veterans and you think, wow, this is really cool to be around these women. And so we connect women to each other because when you have that network, when you have that safety net, of being able to be who you are (i.e. a Woman Veteran) and be able to express yourself as a Woman Veteran so, you know, I'm never going to ask you, oh, what does that mean? Because I understand, then you start to thrive. You start to realize your potential. Yes. you're a Woman Veteran. Yes, you're part of the this unique collaboration, this unique club, and yes, you can do this other step because now you have these other Women Veterans behind you saying, yeah, you can do this and go for it.

And I think that's what makes us different. We don't have different chapters. But yet we have these women from all over the United States that we can talk to because we have these eight week groups where we talk about different things. We talk about transition. We talk about social networks. We talk about relationships because these are things that we don't get to talk about. So if something happened to you in the military and not necessarily a good thing. You can talk about it, but you can't really just let loose about it. You know what I mean? You can't just lose your demeanor.  You had to keep a lid on it. Then you come out of the military and you can't really talk about it there because civilians don't care. They really very few of them do. And they ask you questions like, why didn't you do this? And why? Because I understand the structure, but in WOVEN, it's that safe place where you can talk about what you need to talk about. And we're like, okay, we get it. How can we help? What can we do? And that's the one thing I love about WOVEN is it's just that soft place to fall if you need it, to be able to reach out to other Women Veterans, and we have in-person groups. And we also have online. So if logistics is an issue for you, the great thing about being online is that I can be in a group with women from all of the United States. And it's just very cool. I think the online aspect is very cool.

DUANE: It sounds like a place where you'd either have to explain yourself nor defend yourself because in going back to what you were talking about active signaling of the fact that you're a Veteran. These are the stickers and that everybody needs to have the DD two 14 on the back of their windshield. But on the back of my Jeep, I have an American flag and a Pow like An Army. Like I have a small things ,but for Male Veterans, if I have a sticker of a combat action badge in the back of my vehicle, I get out of the supermarket and somebody will shake me by my hand.

But if a Woman Veteran gets out of their vehicle, somebody will come up and say, well, is that your husband's vehicle? Like, there will be questions. They will feel like they have to defend themselves. No, I have a right. Even though I have already earned this, they have to continually, in many ways, defend the fact that they continue to have the right to be able to display that and that can get tiring. So women is, as you were saying, don't have that opportunity to do that passive signaling, and they have no desire to do the active signaling because of the grief that may come. 

CAT: Absolutely. You know, I've been confronted several times. There's a supermarket here in Charlotte that has Veteran parking. And if it's open, I parked there. It doesn't say disabled Veterans. It doesn't, it just says Veteran parking. And the number of times that someone has confronted me saying that, do you know that's Veteran parking?

And I'm like, yes. And they're like, just because driving your husband's car doesn't mean, and I have a license plate that says US Air Force Retired. I have a bumper sticker that says, US Woman Veteran and it doesn't matter. My husband and I will be at a networking event or any event and my husband, bless his heart, will say we are retired military, which we are. And all of a sudden the questions are being fired towards my husband. And he will gently say, thank you for all those questions, but she is the retiree and it gets very quiet, very quickly. They're like, oh, thank you for your service.And then they turn around and leave and I'm like, could, they could still ask me the same questions. So it's, it can be exhausting, but I'm on this path of enlightening of educating those civilians in saying, you know what don't assume when you see a couple, air on the side of the woman being the Veteran, because if she's not, she'll quickly say, “Oh, I was a military spouse.” My husband was in because if you air the other way, you're going to get the wrath of a Woman Veteran and you don't want that.

DUANE: And that awareness that leads to offense on one side, but also embarrassment on the other end, the disrupted relationship. That's really, it sounds like what you're trying to do is really bring these two things together and part of how you're doing is as a podcast host. I always love to talk to a fellow podcast host. You're the founder and host of The Sisters In Service podcast. The show seems to be an opportunity for Women Veterans to hear from other Women Veterans experiencing the same things, and you give them a platform to ensure that their voices are being heard. 

CAT: Absolutely. When I first started, I thought about just Women Veterans, but then I realized that families are in the military, spouses, kids, animals, dogs. And so I opened it up to, not just Women Veterans, but men who were doing things, Male Veterans who were doing those things that are helping all Veterans. But military spouses, they're doing fantastic stuff in the civilian space. Military brats, who later went into the military, maybe they didn't because of their experience. And then Veteran service organizations that are helping Veterans. But again, it's that platform where if one person is listening and they hear a story of a Woman Veteran that I'm interviewing and they figure out that, wow, this person went through something similar and came out on the other side to speak about it, then I'm I'm happy that I've helped one person, one Woman Veteran that realized that she's not alone and I love podcasting. I absolutely love it. You find that favorite piece of candy and you just can't stop eating it.

DUANE: I've been doing it since 2017, so I definitely understand that. My wife calls it my really expensive hobby. But that idea of capturing the stories, as you said, even whether it's the story of a Woman Veteran explaining what her experiences are, or a military spouse or someone supporting that.

But you're also providing an opportunity for her story to be heard without creating the exhausting nature of telling her story over and over and over and over and over again. And that's the piece of being able to capture her story in a way that people can listen to her story over and over again, but she doesn't have to go through the, again, you've provided a place where she's comfortable.She doesn't need to defend herself. She doesn't need to explain herself, but you help her tell her story in such a way that can help so many more. 

CAT: Absolutely. The other thing I like to do is highlight those Women Veterans who are out there doing it. They're starting their 5 0 1 C3 in their businesses and highlighting what that is. And again, I want to know the journey, you know, because I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but someone will come out of the military and they're like, oh, I went from zero to six figures, as a coach or as a whatever. And you're like, whoa. And it makes you think you can do that too. Not that you can't. But they make it sound like it was this automatic thing. And when I interview Women Veterans, or even military spouses or whatever, I want to know that story. I want to know that part of the journey where you have to choose between your business, doing something that will move the needle forward and eating PB and Js for a week. I want to know that story. And so if they say, oh, that never happened to me, then it's okay, I get it. But there's gotta be a story there because I see myself in that story and other women who go, okay, wow. She had to eat PB and Js too. I get it. I understand it. And then they're going to be more, they're going to buy into it more. Do you know what I mean?  And highlighting those Women Veterans that because sometimes we are seen as very pushy and aggressive, or we're seen as very damaged. And even though both of those are slightly true what about everybody that's in the middle? We're all a little bit of that. I'm not who I am without having been in the military. The military made me very, I won't say aggressive, but it made me want to speak up for myself to not be afraid to do that. Am I a little damaged? Sure. The military does a little bit of that too.

DUANE: As I always say, you don't go through what we go through without getting a couple of dents in the fender or more. 

CAT: Yes, but I'm also a lot of that in between too. And I want people to see the whole spectrum of Women Veterans. From the ones who are pushy and aggressive and they're very just very good at their business and they're very successful, but those that are damaged, but they're still talking about what happened to them so that other women can learn from that. And also these women that are in the middle that are not sure what they want to do, but they'll hear a story about a Woman Veteran that started a business and became successful, or they'll hear about a woman who was damaged and say, oh my goodness, she did it. I can do it too.

DUANE: I think it's absolutely admirable. I have a number of colleagues who were feeling the same way. When we say the things seem to be shifting, they're not shifting as fast as they need to be, but I can imagine that you've seen differences the way things are now than they were 20 years ago, or what have you. And so this is going to be a long, slow process over time. And I really appreciate you making an effort to do that. If people want to find out more about the work that you're doing, either The Women Veterans Network or the podcast, how can they? 

CAT:  For WOVEN, you can go to https://www.wovenwomenvets.org/. If you want to contact me, I'm on all social media. You can type in Cat Corchado or Sister in Service. Or if you want to send me an email sisterinservice@gmail.com. 

DUANE: And we'll make sure that all of those are linked in the show notes. Cat, thank you so much for coming on the show. 

CAT: Thank you so much for the invite. You know, I love to talk. So when people say, oh, I hope you're not going to have an issue. I'm like, no, I love to talk. And I'm a podcast or so that's what we do. 

Once again, this show is brought to you by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem, specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory. That's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations, you can find out more: www.psycharmor.org. 

It was great to be able to host Cat on the show. And as you can tell, she's got a lot of passion about supporting Veterans in general and Women Veterans in particular. The first point that I'd like to bring up is what cat found herself doing after the military, not the specific work in the fitness industry, but the post-military path that she found most agreeable, which is self-employment and entrepreneurship. 

You heard her experience with the hiring manager who discounted her military service while also highlighting her lack of a college degree. I served the first half of my career as Cat served the second half of hers. And believe me in the eighties and nineties pursuing civilian educational in the military was not as encouraged or even as promoted as much as it is today. 

So the opportunities for her to get a degree while in the military may not have been as accessible as they are now. So she chose the route of self-employment, which is a route that's common to many Veterans organizations like bunker labs, for example, support Veterans and developing their own businesses. 

According to a study conducted by the US Small Business Administration,  Veterans are 45% more likely than non Veterans to start their own business. And one out of every 10 small businesses are Veteran owned. Consider how many more small businesses are started and run by military spouses or children of military service members. And you can imagine how many small businesses in our country are started by those who have served or their families. And that's not limited to current Veterans, almost half of World War II veterans eventually became self-employed. Consider that personally, if you have older Veterans in your lineage. For example, my two grandfathers who served during that time worked independently. One is a mechanic and one who ran his own tailor shop. Veterans have all the skills necessary, like doing a lot with the little, we understand the importance of logistics. We have grit and we know how to endure hardship. I've mentioned it before on the show, but we're used to the gig economy. Listening to Cat's military journey, she had six different duty stations in 20 years. And within each of those duty stations, probably a number of different jobs. So you're used to rapid iterations of concepts, reacting to uncertainty and chaos. Sure sounds like the characteristics of an entrepreneur to me. So it was great to hear that aspect of Cat story come out because it's a common one for many Veterans and post-military life. 

The other point that I like to make is how can you do what Cat is doing? Ensuring that those who have historically not had a voice, have an opportunity to be heard. That conversation that she and I had about active signaling of Veteran status versus passive signaling and Veteran status. Passive signaling is giving off the Veteran vibe, so to speak either consciously or unconsciously. 

Wearing clothing that identifies one is a Veteran or symbols indicating Veteran service on your car or on your home. Flying the Marine Corps flag or a license plate or a bumper sticker. Include Veteran on your driver's license. As many states have the option to do now. These are small things that Veterans can do initially and then can become passive signals that they're part of a Veteran culture. Active signaling is more like consistently sharing your military service as part of an introduction, referring to yourself as a Veteran, in a clear manner online.  As Cat indicated, Women Veterans are less likely to do both for a number and variety of reasons which we talked about in the show. 

But more to the point what is your organization doing to ask about military and Veteran status from your constituents? For example, does your local women's small business organization know how many of their members are Veterans or military spouses or the local realtors association or bar association or chamber of commerce. Did they ask if their members ever served in the military? 

If we rely on Veterans to identify themselves, then you're likely going to have an overrepresented sample of those who have always had a voice. Those who are comfortable sharing their military status, who are not challenged when they do and don't feel the need to defend or explain themselves. 

It takes those who are willing to talk about their military service, like Cat to pave the way for others to talk about theirs. Just like we said about higher ranks in the military. If the person you see talking about their military service doesn't look like you or have similar experiences to you, then you might feel like you don't belong in the Veteran space. That's unfortunate and more importantly, it's flat out wrong. There's no common definition of what a Veteran looks like, sounds like, or even is. 

Listen. The argument about women in combat for me has been answered many times over. It was answered with my driver and Afghanistan, dismounted behind me in the middle of the village to make sure I didn't get shot in the back. It was answered for me when Sergeant Eduviges G. Wolf volunteered for a patrol that she didn't have to go on and died in an ambush when an RPG pierced the side of her vehicle. 

You can't tell me that women or any other historically underrepresented group doesn't belong in the military because my experience tells me that they do. I've served with them and alongside them and know that they're serving their country in harm's way right now. That's going to be true when I record this and it's going to be true when you listen to it, whether you do so the day it comes out or five years later. And after that service is over, they deserve every single bit of the resources, benefits, and recognition that any other service member does.  So I ask you again, how are you or your organization making sure that their voices are being heard. So this is a passion subject for me, and I can assure you that it is for Cat as well. 

I'm glad to have been able to share some of her story. If you appreciated it as much as I did, we'd like to hear about it. You can leave a review on the podcast player you're listening to this on if it allows you to do that.  You can drop us an email@ info@psycharmor.org or you can reach out over social media. 

Linked to all that is in the show notes, of course, but reach out and let us know what you think about the show and what suggestions you may have about future guests. 

For this week PsychArmor’s resource of the week, I'd like to share the PsychArmor course Women Who Serve presented by Margaret Riley. A U.S. Army Combat Veteran who served as a judge advocate, general lawyer with the hundred first airborne division. This core series is an overview of the contributions that women have made to our military forces and is intended for those who want to better understand women's role in our military.You can find a link to the course in our show notes.