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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:02.08] - Jennifer Barnhill
In order to really honor that promise of like we're in it together, it's a military family unit, we have to be telling more of their stories. Otherwise, it's just like that pat on the head or pat on the shoulder, pat on the back. It doesn't have teeth unless you tell those stories and really elevate them.
[00:00:18.19] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. Today's guest is Jennifer Barnhill. She is a journalist, a researcher, and an author of a book coming out in October called, I want to get this right, The Military Stories You've Been Told and the Ones You Need to Hear. Welcome to the show, Jennifer.
[00:00:37.17] - Jennifer Barnhill
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
[00:00:40.02] - John S. Berry
I have to ask you, how does one become a military journalist and researcher? How did this start?
[00:00:46.03] - Jennifer Barnhill
Well, I went to school for journalism, right? And then I actually had a PhD scholarship lined up. I was working at the Smithsonian. And then I met a gentleman wearing whites who went to the Naval Academy. And the best-laid plans of younger Jennifer O'Reilly at the time went out the door. I had to pivot my career just as many military spouses do. So I, wrote for Stars and Stripes when we lived in Japan. I got blogging. I made the journalism happen along the way but then had to pivot after I actually learned of one friend who got a cancer diagnosis, and it set me on a new path, which was wanting to understand the different inner workings of this community. I just started researching a topic about military spouse clubs, actually. It opened a door of a population that just didn't have their stories told.
[00:01:39.22] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I think this story is being told a lot more now, especially where we are now, the Military Influencer Conference where we're hearing from the military spouses, the saying goes, when you deploy, the whole family deploys. My experience was, as I deployed as a Company Commander, I was so caught up in the mission. We had Halliburton, KBR. This was in 2005, taking care of our laundry, our food. My wife was at home with our daughter who was four months old. I've got the better end of the deal because I got to focus on the mission and all those things are taken care of, but I didn't have to worry about how the lawn was going to be mowed, how we're going to get groceries, the baby not sleeping through the night. None of those were my concerns. Now, it doesn't mean the mission wasn't... Look, there's something about even if something's hard, if you can just be focused on it, it becomes a lot less stressful. I think back to my now ex-wife, probably because of the deployment, that that was something that was pretty tough for her, and that her struggles and her stories weren't told back then.
[00:02:36.05] - Jennifer Barnhill
Yeah. I mean, I'm really honored to get to tell some of those stories. My reporting primarily focuses on military families, whether that's a military child experience, the spouse experience, and even the parents of military service members, what are their experiences like? In order to really honor that promise of we're in it together, it's a military family unit, we have to be telling more of their stories. Otherwise, it's just like that pat on the head or pat on the shoulder, pat on the back. It doesn't have teeth unless you tell those stories and really elevate them. I've done that within this community. There are others, and these things are changing to your earlier point. We're here at the Military Influencer Conference to elevate the stories of military families. We're getting better, but we can continue to bring those stories into the public sphere because in my book, I talk about how it's an access point. I don't know what it's like to be on a battlefield. I don't. Most Americans don't. We don't know what it's like to be in combat. And that's okay. But we do know what it's like to care about our loved ones and want them to come home safely.
[00:03:42.10] - Jennifer Barnhill
We know what it must feel like to be solo parenting for a time. And we can have compassionate understanding when we see ourselves in the experience. So, in this book, I hope to give Americans access to a little bit more of the military experience, the military story that maybe they didn't have access before.
[00:04:00.21] - Jennifer Barnhill
Yeah, and I think it's so important. You put it in the story context. I wish I would have known this as a young leader before I went to law school. As a trial lawyer, I learned the importance of telling the story. If you want to shape a narrative and you want to get your story across, and it's in an adversarial system, the best story wins. You want to have an amazing story to tell a jury who's probably bored about being there. Now, they all want to do their civic duty, but after being in a trial for 5, 10 days, a lot of them are not too excited about being there. But if there's a great story and a great narrative, they can learn it and they can follow it, as opposed to just throwing out a bunch of random facts. I love what you do as a journalist is you have to create the story because that wasn't always an important influence when you're in front of a jury, but when you are leading others, whether it's your family or soldiers, getting to tell them a story, they can put things in context and make sense and teach lessons, is crucial, but it's not easy, is it?
[00:04:56.11] - Jennifer Barnhill
No, absolutely not. Because you want to do right by this community. I'm in this community. My husband serves in the Navy, and so I'm a journalist, but I'm also a spouse, so I have to marry those things in my journalism. I think that that actually has made me a better journalist. I have compassion for those who I'm reporting on because I don't want them sharing their story with me to make them feel uneasy, to possibly put their service member career at risk for speaking out on something. I work with them because it's so important to me to take their stories and carefully report them and do so as accurately as I possibly can. And so that's been my goal in my reporting and in the book, just to elevate some of those stories that maybe not everyone knows about, especially in the civilian community, in the Veteran community, because the military family community, we stick together pretty tight just like service members. We have our own bonds. But I want to share our stories with others, and I want them to have access to things that they maybe didn't know before.
[00:05:59.23] - John S. Berry
Now, I want to ask you a question because you're an expert in journalism. Sure. When I deployed, we were all given media training, and they told the show nothing is ever off the record. Then as a lawyer, and I had high-profile cases, media would approach, and I'd always told, Hey, they're just looking for a sound bite. And by the way, nothing is off the record. I want to ask you this question, is it true that nothing is off the record? Or do you sometimes say, Okay, hey, look, I'm not going to put this in the story. Or what's the best? Truthfully, what's the best way to handle it? And what happens in reality? Because you're trying to get stories and you want to get the real story, but there's probably things people wouldn't tell you if they knew they were going to come out, and yet you still need context to write the best possible story.
[00:06:42.04] - Jennifer Barnhill
Yes. So how I operate in this space is maybe not the average or the norm, to be honest. I'm friends with some of the folks that I become friends with some of the people that I interview, right? I never want to put them at risk in that way. Yes, technically, things are never off the record. I don't advise our Veterans or our family members to speak with journalists without that framework. So I don't advise them to ever share something that they wouldn't want to be published. However, I definitely work with families to talk with them, I need to know because I need context. So even if I'm not putting their name in quotes, I will talk with them what is called on background, and I don't use their names. I just learn from them. And that's an invaluable like being free to share your experience without fear that it's going to come back at you later is invaluable. And so through that, I think I built trust in the community, which is an essential component of many fields, but journalism, especially. At least where I sit.
[00:07:47.10] - John S. Berry
And that trust is important because a lot of times, the stories get better, the more vulnerable people are, and the more... It's almost like the stuff that we don't want to share might be the most important part of the story.
[00:08:00.17] - Jennifer Barnhill
Yes, it is. It absolutely is. I think that people are guarded. I think there's a lot in this community where there's policy that tells us, tell service members what they can and cannot say on behalf of the DOD or the military. That puts people in a position where they're not sure what they can say. They don't know if this is an acceptable... I'll give you an example. In housing, privatized military housing, there have been many cases of mold or damage. And so family members, they're living at their home. It might be on a military installation, but it's their home life. This is supposed to be where they get to have respite from their military experience. And when they go and they happen to be in a house that has mold and their child is in the hospital, they're not sure if they can talk about that to the media. And that's concerning because they should have the ability to raise their hand and say, I need help if I'm not getting help through the channels that exist. And so, I've tried to reassure them, no, you're not speaking on behalf of the military.
[00:09:10.11] - Jennifer Barnhill
You're just speaking about your family experience. And so, I think that it's important to remind them of the laws and the policies that govern being an active-duty service member, but also to tell them that you do have rights and abilities to have... You can vote, you can do this, and these are the rights that you do have, and you can talk to people as long as you're not representing the military. You can talk about your family life and things like that.
[00:09:38.09] - John S. Berry
I want to ask you this, though. You brought up the fact that sometimes families are afraid to talk, and we go back to things like the Camp Lejeune water. Then finally, the Camp Lejeune Justice Act comes out several decades later. But for years, people really didn't talk about it, feel comfortable talking about it. You go through the documents and it appears that leadership didn't feel comfortable bringing it up. I think at some point in our lives, we're all scared to stand up for something because we know there's going to be consequences. As a journalist, you put your name on something. People are going to come back to you and say, Okay, The people who aren't happy may say this isn't true. The people that are happy sometimes will take it and use it for purposes beyond what you wanted to use it for and take it out of context.
[00:10:24.04] - Jennifer Barnhill
Yeah, I mean, that always is a risk for anything. In the book, I talk about Red Hill, That's similar to what you're talking about with the water. Families, in contrast to some of the other experiences, they did come forward and they did talk about things seemingly without fear because they were living and their children were sick and they needed help. Sometimes when you're forced to say things, you put those risks aside because there's a bigger issue at hand. You want safety for your children. In that case, they were on an island in Hawaii where the costs were so high to go to a safe environment where they drink the water. Absolutely, it is risky to put your name on stuff in this community. But at the same time, so much of that is perception as well. We operate a lot on perception, especially in the military spouse community. If I do this, it's going to reflect badly on my spouse, so I'm going to not do that, whatever that may be. The reality is that a lot of that is based on more historical traditions that were once true and have disseminated just through the narrative in the public space.
[00:11:33.16] - Jennifer Barnhill
But many service members don't get... There's no consequence. They used to say the Exceptional Family Member program, that it would derail your entire career. Well, where's the evidence of that? Sometimes we have to combat those myths with truth, and that will give people a more safe environment to share their stories.
[00:11:54.01] - John S. Berry
Yeah. Have you ever read Once an Eagle?
[00:11:56.09] - Jennifer Barnhill
I haven't, no.
[00:11:57.13] - John S. Berry
It's a novel, but it gets into some of that military life. Back in the day, it spans from pre-World War I to pre-Vietnam. It's the story of a man from Nebraska who becomes a general officer. But part of it is the family as well and the spouses and how they interacted during that time. Yes, people wouldn't speak up because they were concerned about the career of the spouse. Things weren't discussed. I thought that was beautifully illustrated in that book. But speaking of stories, what is your favorite story that you've covered?
[00:12:33.14] - Jennifer Barnhill
Oh, my gosh. Okay, I'm going to go back to the book because then I know the story in there. My favorite story in this book, which is not my favorite story in general in the military, but it is my favorite story in this book, is I don't know if you're familiar with the Stockdale family? Yes. So Admiral Stockdale was a POW during the Vietnam War, and many people don't know, but his wife played a major role in the safe return of many of the POWs from the Hanoi Hilton. So what ended up happening is she received a letter eventually after she heard of him being shot down over Vietnam. And in that letter, it referenced names of people that she didn't know. She's like, I don't know Bob and Fred. I don't know who those people are. She was alerted to the fact that he was sending her a message. That was the start of this spy-level work that she and many other military spouses did at that time. She partnered with the military to help decode. They would send pictures back and forth, and any picture that had a flower in it, he knew to dissolve in water.
[00:13:46.16] - Jennifer Barnhill
There was this whole story and backstory to how they got eventually more humane treatment, and they started having the Geneva Convention honored, was because these women knew of the torture that was happening. Were and they played the game for a long time until they decided, Government, you're not doing anything. The military couldn't act without the government support, and the government wasn't willing to elevate an unpopular war. They just weren't... They didn't do it. And so the women went to the press and eventually put public pressure on the Northern Vietnamese to start obeying the Geneva Convention and ultimately got them safely home. And their story is in there. I had the honor of working on helping to erect a statue, the first statue honoring military spouses in Coronado, California. That story is documented in here. It's one of the ones I'm proud to have not only reported on, but got to become a part of. I'm really proud of that one.
[00:14:47.13] - John S. Berry
Yeah. And that is the story behind a famous story, right? Yes. Admirable Stockdale. I believe he was shot down, and he was, I think it was seven years in the Hanoi Hilton. Yes. And from that, we get what is called The Stockdale Paradox, which is you have to maintain eternal optimism, but you must always face the brutal facts. And so there's something about being optimistic, but being honest about reality. That's been carried, I think, the Stoics, they love that. You study Stoicism, and this is what it is, that you can't change something, you have to accept it, but you can still be optimistic, but you have to face the facts. I think his... But you wonder, how did this guy make it seven years? We just assumed he just hung out for seven years. But no, this is part of a story I never knew, that the military spouses and families were part of the change that helped him probably keep the faith during that time.
[00:15:46.05] - Jennifer Barnhill
The reason a historian wrote about him and said, One of the reasons that we know about Jim Stockdale as compared to so many of the other prisoners of war, is because of his willingness to tell his story. He did alongside Sybil, and he elevated her work. She wasn't the only one doing this. It was a network of women who were working collaboratively, who honestly are our four sisters, I guess, who helped pave the way for the advocates that are here at MIC and who are doing the work of, I see a problem in this community that I believe in, and I want to help this community. I want to serve this community just like my service member serves. I'm going to do it in my way with my professional skills. And they go and do it. But it was because of women like Sybil Stockdale that they're empowered to do that because that was not okay at the time. You weren't supposed to... My friend who has also wrote a full book on this, she says that at that time, your name was only supposed to be in the paper, birth, marriage, and death, if you were a woman in that time frame.
[00:16:52.17] - Jennifer Barnhill
So this was unusual for them to be on the news. That was not comfortable for them. They took meetings with the Northern Vietnamese in Paris. They did a lot. I actually got to bring my daughter to the dedication for that statue that I mentioned, and she got to meet a child of one of the POWs, and that interaction is captured here. But we have to talk about the family stories, too. What's it like to have your dad in a prison camp? Our kids go through a lot as well. It's important to document those histories, to understand them, so that we can serve the whole community and talk about it together.
[00:17:31.14] - John S. Berry
Well, I can't wait to talk about your book launch. That's the teaser, because before we do, I want to talk about the After Action Review. The examples of great leadership and poor leadership. You don't have to name names, but let's start with the good.
[00:17:42.16] - Jennifer Barnhill
Great leadership. You lead by example. The leaders that have meant a lot to me have been willing to put in the work and nose to the grindstone right alongside. And they support me in ways that are not directly going to benefit them. So what are you doing personally? What are the things that make you come alive? And watering those things, helping those moments. I'm going to get teary because I'm thinking about this. But when you support someone and it doesn't serve you. Those are the best leaders. You're serving that person, not the mission exactly. Serving the people. Because if you serve the people, this is at the end of my book, but when you serve the people, the mission is served because then they're empowered and they feel like they're a part of something bigger. Worse is the opposite of that. When you are so focused on the mission that the people follow the wayside. As a storyteller, I feel like this is right on brand because when the people stop being the center of, I don't know, sitting at family dinners, it could be anything. When we stop putting people as central to our interactions as human beings, we feel it inside, even if we don't know we are.
[00:19:00.23] - Jennifer Barnhill
And so I would say bad leaders do not put people first, in my experience.
[00:19:08.14] - John S. Berry
Wow. Bad leaders do not put people first. All right, let's talk about the book launch and where people can learn more about you, Jennifer Barnhill. So, the book, once again, is The Military Stories You've Been Told and The Ones You Need To Hear. It comes out when?
[00:19:23.09] - Jennifer Barnhill
It comes out officially on October 21st, and it can be purchased anywhere. Pre-orders are available online, but I'm giving away and selling a limited number of copies at this event, so I'm really excited for people to have it in their hands. But yeah, they can grab it on October 21st.
[00:19:40.14] - John S. Berry
Where can people learn more about you, Jennifer Barnhill?
[00:19:43.13] - Jennifer Barnhill
I'm on social I'm on social media, primarily on LinkedIn as well as Instagram, and so you can go there. I have a sub stack as well where you can read some of the articles that I've written that has helped influence my book, and It's a long URL, so I'll have to share it with you after. But yes, if you find me on Substack, definitely can read some of the content and learn more.
[00:20:09.21] - John S. Berry
Finally, what is the number one thing you want to get out of publishing this book?
[00:20:14.18] - Jennifer Barnhill
I had to write this book. There's a lot of people who are like I never thought I would write a book. When I say this as a journalist, my favorite skill is writing things in a condensed way. I don't like expanding. I find it exciting to condense. The reason I wrote this book, and when I want people to get out of this book, is there's always more to the story, and families are a part of the military. Unless the military decides to only have single service members, we are a priority. We are something that is essential to recruitment, retention, and readiness. We serve alongside our service members. That is not to say it's the same, but we don't have to compete with each other. We are a military family unit and a community that can embrace all of our stories. I hope that people read some of these stories but also go out and read different stories because this is just part of it. These are just part of the stories.
[00:21:16.04] - John S. Berry
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting Veteran leadership in business, strengthening the Veteran community, and getting Veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching at Veteran Led on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.