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On this episode of Behind the Mission, Duane has a conversation with Navy Veteran Lornett Vestal, Campaign Representative for Sierra Club Military Outdoors, a Sierra Club program that aims to improve the lives of veterans and their families through connections with the outdoors and inspire members of the military and veteran community to become outspoken champions for environmental conservation and justice.
Because fewer than 7% of Americans have served in uniform, most Americans are unfamiliar with military service and culture. As a result, members of the military and Veteran community are at greater risk for disconnection and lack of belonging with the civilian community. PsychArmor’s mission is to bridge the military-civilian divide by educating and training a Nation. Each week, Duane France, a combat Veteran and Clinical Mental Health Counselor, will dig deep into the stories “Behind The Mission” - and create a conversation with organizations and leaders on how they are utilizing their expertise and networks to support the military-connected community.
Welcome to episode 53 of Behind The Mission, a show that sparks conversation with PsychArmor's trusted partners in 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 or by going to www.psycharmor.org/podcast.
Thanks again for joining us on Behind The Mission. Our work and mission are supported by the 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 out more about PsychArmor at www.psycharmor.org.
On today's episode, I'm having a conversation with Lornett Vestal, Campaign Representative for Sierra Club Military Outdoors, a Sierra Club program that aims to improve the lives of Veterans and their families, through connection with the outdoors and inspire members of the military and Veteran community to become outspoken champions for environmental conservation and justice.
Lornett joined the United States Navy at the age of 17. He served four years honorably and was deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. He's traveled to various countries, including Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, and Dystonia. He has a bachelor's degree in sociology from Northern Illinois University and a master's degree in social service administration from the University of Chicago.
You can find out more about Lornett by checking out his bio in our show notes. Let's get into my conversation with him and come back afterward to talk about some of the key points.
DUANE: So the goal of this show is to tell the stories behind the mission of the organizations that we're highlighting. I'm interested in hearing about how you became involved with Sierra Club and then the work that Sierra Club does with Sierra Club Military Outdoors and why it's so important.
LORNETT: Yeah. So thanks for that. Duane, it's an interesting story of how I got involved with Sierra Club. I relocated from Chicago, Illinois, which is my hometown to Atlanta, Georgia in 2015. Prior to that, I worked in education and my background was in social work. So I worked for Chicago Public Schools and some educational nonprofits.
So that was my background. But when I moved down to Georgia, trying to get back into that field, my partner, who's now my wife at the time, she was my girlfriend and we were living together. Her background was an environmental law attorney and she was like, “Hey, some of the big green organizations, environmental organizations are looking to hire Veterans for different things.” At that time, it was a lot about retrofitting homes to meet standards, fuel efficiency and energy efficiency, and stuff like that. So when she told me that when I first moved down to Georgia, I was whatever, what do they want with some Veterans? I didn't really pay her any attention.
So six months later, no luck with trying to get into education again, with my social work background and she bought it up again. And the one organization I could think of was the Sierra Club whose reputation as an environmental organization happened to look on their website for job openings and saw something that kind of stunned me.
And they were looking for a military outdoors coordinator for the Military Outdoors Program. And this program had been around in Sierra Club, since 2006. I submitted my application and the interview went well and I ended up getting hire. And a fun fact about that. I tell people, even if you are interviewing for a very casual organization dress up. We did this virtual because the Sierra Club is a national organization. So it is all over the country. So most people interviewing me were on the west coast. I was on the east coast at the time, but I did show up with a shirt tie looking my Sunday best. And they pointed that out. Also, when I, long after I got hired, “Hey, we have the people show up in t-shirt They were very casual .” At least you came dressing like you were interviewing for a higher position than what you were interviewing for. So if, when in doubt, just come to dress your best mate for a job.
DUANE: I really appreciate this idea of working for an organization that's focused on the environment in like you said, Sierra Club, but I'm interested from your background and you were in the Navy. I was in the army. I spent well over half of my military career overseas in a number of different environments. We experienced a lot of geographic diversity in our military careers. A lot of it is mind-blowing beauty, just some really amazing outdoor experiences. I'm thinking the mountains of Afghanistan.
And if you've never seen a sunset over the Hills of Africa, like you’ve not really seen anything. I'm wondering if you had any experience like that in your military career, that once you got into this work, that you look back some of your time in the military and say, well, I did have some connection to this kind of stuff.
LORNETT: When I was in a service, when I got out and a friend of mine who was a fellow social worker who got me into sweat lodges in the Midwest though, backcountry sweat lodges, and using that traditional healing mechanism to reflect upon my time at service and just life in general, where I've been to at that point.
And didn't know at that time healing through nature, this is like 2005, 2006. Go back to my military days during deployment. I recall seeing a lunar eclipse. We're in the red sea. So nothing around the ship goes dark and even time. So you're on the flight deck, just the beauty of that lunar eclipse. Or, in the red seat, seeing all the young jellyfish with the bioluminescence. So you're looking up at the stars and you look out at the sea and you see all these jellyfish looking at the stars themselves. And I think one of the most beautiful places I've been to when I was in the service had to be Cannes, Australia. They have the mountains there, but it's on the coast of Australia. So you have the mountains and you had the beach. So you had that stark contrast, like towering mountains and then you have like sea-level beaches and quite a beautiful place. These are experiences that I'd never had if I'd never joined the military.
DUANE: And I think that's really a lot of Veterans from their time in the military. They have connections to the outdoors that they may never have. You said that you grew up in Chicago? I grew up in St. Louis. Very close. Three or four hours Southwest of Chicago there, but three miles away from the airport. I was a city guy. I never would have had the connection to the outdoors. Sometimes you have to do things in the outdoors, in the military, that you don't want to do.Camping in the military is nothing like actually going like you said, Backwoods backpacking.
LORNETT: That’s one of the things that, especially the sailors and Marines, they'll be like, even my own brother was still in the army. He's like, why would I want to go to the field for fun? I took four duty guardsmen on a river trip with me and they were like this, “We thought we were going to have like four-hour briefing and be in safety group. And then in another briefing.” I was like, well, just don't disrespect. Everybody have fun. Listen to the guides on the river. They are in charge, this is their space. They know the Riverbed, even if you've done this before, even in the military, especially operations.
But let them, this is their space. If they come to our world, then we're in charge. And that was it. That was the briefing. Obviously with Sierra Club protocols and all that other stuff in place. But it was that. So they were like, “Oh man, this is great.” They had a great time.
DUANE: Yeah, no, I agree. I think the military does to the outdoors, what it does to a lot of things like potatoes and eggs. Boil it until it just looks tasteless and it's just something. But I think there's that idea of getting back to nature. There's been a lot of discussion about health and wellness in the military-affiliated population. Especially psychological behavioral health and wellbeing studies have shown that time spent in nature can improve mental health, even if it's something different than I think I'm going to the field like that and reduce symptoms that service members and Veterans experience as a result of their experiences.
LORNETT: Yes. There is lots of research out there that talks about the healing benefits of nature. And I'm interested in that from a social work perspective because it's those therapeutic benefits of getting outside, get into nature, connecting with nature, and it doesn't have to be going so far place.
So you don't have to go to Cannes, Australia. You don't have to go to some far-away place like Costa Rica. It could be the local park. I grew up in Chicago. I didn't, I never thought about it, but going to the lakefront or a family picnic, that's getting outdoors. It doesn't have to be extreme sports or anything like that.
It could just be something simple as going for a walk in the park or riding a bike on a nice sunny day. It's the wintertime. We're both Midwest boys. So we know that it gets pretty tough to get outside in wintertime in St. Louis Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota. But in the summertime, you have time to get out there. In the spring, you could go to your local park, and get a lot of benefits, or just walk around the block.
DUANE: No, I think that's really interesting. With some people, like what I need, do I need to go to the Amazon or do I need to go to some like adventure race? Do I need to kayak down the Arkansas river or something like that? As you were just talking about Sierra Club does have those kinds of opportunities for Veterans to get out.
The goal is also to be able to say, just get outside and enjoy nature.
LORNETT: Exactly. You want to get folks outside, want to get them to enjoy nature and what we're doing generally with the military outdoors, talking about healing through nature and finding peace. And that's what we hope to do with the military outdoors is help service members heal through nature and not just, you know, active duty service members, Veterans civilians, who are interested in giving back to the military and Veteran community.
So all are welcome. We don't have requirements to be part of the military outdoors. If you want to give back, you're more than welcome to go through the process to become an outings leader and get outside with us. So you don't have to have a purple heart. You don't have to be a combat Veteran. Veterans come in all shapes and sizes and we take you out.
DUANE: I think that's one of the things, when you mentioned healing through nature, you've said a couple of times you're a social worker. I'm a clinical mental health counselor. I have a clinical background and I spent 22 years in the army. And as I often say, you don't go through something like that without getting a couple of dents in the fender and more than just the confidence in the fender, right.
Regardless of whether or not service members and Veterans acknowledged that they need to heal, there is healing that has to be done. As you said, some of your Backwoods, sweat lodge experiences, healing through nature, engaging in the outdoors can be a way for Veterans to access that even to realize, “Hey, there's parts of me that I need to heal.”
LORNETT: Yep, and that's the surprising. And that’s one of the things for Sierra Club Military Outdoors because at the first and foremost Sierra Club is an environmental conservation organization. We were founded by John Mir in 1892 to preserve the Sierra Nevada and actually led to the formation of the national parks, where John Muir took President Teddy Roosevelt out there.
And that kind of led to the creation of the national park system that we know and love today. Also. Fun fact- Sierra Club connection to the military, the 10th mountain division trained with the Sierra Club during and after World War II. Our first Sierra Club president John David Bauer. He was a part of the young 10th mountain regiment.
DUANE: And that was out here in Colorado. 10th mountain division started in, you're talking about this rich history of the Sierra Club, but Rocky mountain national park in my backyard, essentially in, I think in the Sierra Club being a conservation organization, Veterans love the outdoors.
They love outdoor sports and things like that. And I think that the Sierra Club has really provided this historical focus on conserving lands for future use. And that's really what service members and Veterans do is we fight for our country. Sometimes we say that's for our people, but it can also be literally for our lanes.
LORNETT: Exactly. And that's all that nations and borders are. It's just, these people have designated this, this land belongs to this nation and that's what a military does. It is the land we defend. But also have to enjoy that land and to have that land for future generations and what the Sierra Club fights for is to preserve that land for future generations.
So we can have that and it won't be polluted and degradated, and our future generation is going to have to enjoy it, whether that's your children or your grandchildren. And we want the military and Veteran community to be part of that conservation efforts. And also what we want to do is we don't sit there and tell people we are mental health organization because we are not. What we want to see is an outdoor recreation therapy grow and be looked at by the VA and other medical professionals and organizations.
And that we can say getting outdoors could be a complement to traditional talk therapy, medicines, schizophrenia, PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, any type of mental health issues that service members might be dealing with either during service or post service that the outdoors could be an aid to it. So it's not, you're not going to go on a hike and be completely healed.
There is no magic wand that has a mental health professional yourself, but all of these combinations of things can help the individual get better and also improve not only their life but the life of their families too.
I recall one story. It was a 20-year air force officer who came on a green river trip with us and it's, I believe it was 2017. And he bought his daughter and he was reserved and quiet and just all the chatted with his daughter the first couple of days. But by day three, after a couple of magical moments and the green river in that canyon there, and seeing the natural beauty of all that he started to open up. And by day four, before we were wrapping things up, he wanted to get involved. He was in DC area and I connected with some Veterans out there. But what's really amazing, about a month and a half later, we got an email from that service member's wife. She said, “I don't know what you all did to my husband, but he's a different person. He's just been on cloud nine since his trip. And he really wants to get involved and take other Veterans out to have these experience.” So in some way, I'm thinking of this trip, might've saved a marriage and a family who knows what was going on in their personal lives. Strange because I know anybody who's married to a service member, they're getting deployed.
They're always out all the time. You don't know what they're ever going to come home, especially depending on where they deploy to. And I have my family members who are reaching their 20 years mark. I was deployed when I was a service member in Operation Iraqi freedom. So I can know how stressful that can be for the families that serve; for those service members, families, whether they're their spouses, their children, the mom, the dad, it could be worried.
So perhaps they have a family right there. Am I taking the service member on an outdoor trip and also allowing him to bond with his daughter and have this unique shared experience that he and his daughter will never forget. So there's just some, one of the benefits.
DUANE: And again, not to say that that's a clinical cure, right? We're talking about the medical model of mental health treatment versus general wellness and moving beyond illness to wellness. I love I've been coastal kayaking in Delaware before, obviously in Colorado. I love to hike. I love to run and get outside that's therapy with the little T, which can complement the therapy with the big T.
And that's where I see what you're doing. And so the goal is as you talked about, is to provide all those who served an opportunity to experience nature separate from their military experience, not go into the woods because you want to not because you have to. What are some of the programs that Veterans can take advantage of through Sierra Club Military Outdoors?
LORNETT: So the thing with the Sierra Club Military Outdoors is what I like about it is it's the Sierra Club itself is an organization lit and really guided by our volunteers. So we don't have an exact program that this is what you do when you come into the Sierra Club. It is really dictated by our local chapters and the volunteers working with those local chapters.
So we've had Veterans who have had kayaking trips. And I've gone on some of those, those were a good time. Although I finally got the kayak not to just spin around in the circle. Like when I first started, I can get it to go straight line. And I thought I'm improving with kayaking that I'm a rafting guy per se, but we've had rad trips.
We've had Day Hikes. We've had overnight backpack down in Big Bend National Park in Texas, a plethora of things. It all depends on what the volunteers want to do. And we train Veterans and Veteran family members. And it is just individuals looking to give back to the military community, through the military outdoors leading, it's whatever they want to do.
So it's all about just going to work and we will work with you in the local chapter to get you trained, get you out there and it's whatever you want to do. So if you're a woman Veteran and want to do a group where you all do yoga in the park, it's all women Veterans. You could do that.
If you were part of the LGBT community and you want to have a group that are Veterans who have those same experiences, and that's what you want to do. And you guys want to do a hike, you could do that every Saturday. It's all dependent on our volunteers and we've had different volunteer leaders to do all types of things from some ice climbing to backpacking to day hikes, to even just having a Memorial Day get-together at a local park.
DUANE:And so it sounds like it's what the Sierra Club really does is it provides Veterans who are interested in connecting to nature with the means to do so. Right. I mean, that's really one of the things after we get out of the military, we lose that connection with other Veterans and yes, there's organizations where if you want to go fill sandbags, that's Team Rubicon, if you want to go run a mile that's team RWB and things like that.
But Sierra club provides specifically that outdoor experience because that's what Sierra Club is known for and provides a way for Veterans to engage in that.
LORNETT: We've partnered with those organizations, whether it's Team River Runner that takes our wounded warriors out on the rivers for rafting and kayaking and things of that nature, or partnering with Team Red, White, and Blue. We might not be running the Marine Corps, a rucksack 10 miles in five minutes like the other team, RWB likes to do that type of stuff. But we partnered with them to do some outings or organzations like The Mission Continues. So we've partnered with lots of organizations, Minority Veterans of America. So even if those Veteran organizations are not in the realm of getting outdoors, we've partnered with them to different Veterans, to get each other, to get outdoors.
And that that's the goal just to build that community. And we're working right now. We have a big project that we're working with the YMCA at the national level and local level. So we're in four different cities, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Texas, Jacksonville, Florida, and Detroit, Michigan. And we've partnered with the local Y’s there.
And we're running military outdoors outings through the YMCA. So now we are connecting Veterans through the Sierra Club, but we're also giving another layer of connection to community through the YMCA. Obviously one of the big elephant in the room, trying to get folks outdoors and get folks together during a pandemic.
So it's been a learning experience these past couple years. Trying to get these outings off the ground while keeping people safe during the pandemic, but there are ways to connect and these are four pilot cities. This partnership can only grow and it can be more cities. And also we are currently inside the Sierra Club, working with our local chapters to bring on the military outdoors to a local city and state. So what I'm trying to be a, a national organization, we are a national organization, but we're trying to get this program nationally. It's only two working staff members with the military outdoors. So myself and my colleague, Aaron, and we can't be every place, even in the best time to take away COVID we just, we can't train all those people.
So we have to rely on our local chapters and our volunteers and our colleagues at staff level at the chapters to work with the military and Veteran communities to bring them in and get them on the path to lead outdoors with Veterans.
And I know that civilians, sometimes you’ve probably got this Duane, but how do I work with veterans? How I talk to Veterans, how do we even interact with them?
And at the end of the day, for the most part, they’re like every other group of people. There's some of us that are cranky, grumpy. There's some of us who might be jerks, but for the most part, we're just people. When you just talk to us like people and treat us like human beings.
And if you do that, you can work with Veterans. We don't bite. It might be a little more cursing, a little trash-talking involved with the Army VS Navy Game, Go Navy, but it's all in fun. And if you get people out on the trail, nine times out of 10, it's going to be a good time. Whether your backpacking, you're rafting and just camping out. People are going to have a good time. And when they had those moments of awe, it's amazing to see it in your face and be like, Oh My God, I can't believe I did that. And one of my favorite events was a few years ago, we partnered with the International Rescue Committee and we took, some of their, youth were all refugees.
They were high school kids. Um, and we did Stone Mountain Park here in Georgia. And we had some Veterans come out. Some of the Veterans, I worked with the military outdoors and they did a 10 mile hike installed at least teenagers, like 10 miles. I'm like, Oh God. I can’t go that far, I'm going to die. And by the end of the day, they were great.
We had lunch, it was great conversations. They couldn't believe they did that. The Vets who came out had a great time. The kids who came at a great time and these kinds of the things can bridge those gaps. And it also pushes people out of their boundaries to the, I can't do it. I can't do it I can't. And then they do it.
They're like, Oh My God, I did it. I went kayaking. I went whitewater rafting. I ice climbed. I did some mountain biking. I would never do that. Or I just went for a hike. I just never figured I'd get out of my house. So just gently pushing people out of their comfort zone. We're not going to, we're not going to go skydiving and push you out the plane, so, yep.
DUANE: But I think about that and that's what the military does. It puts us outside our comfort zone. You grew up in Chicago and then you watched an eclipse in the red sea with all the jellyfish. I can't imagine anything more outside of the comfort zone is a Chicago guy in the middle of the red sea.
And for a lot of Veterans, they lose that when they get out and then they understand this it's again, almost a way to reconnect. And so it's really great to hear that the Sierra Club Military Outdoors is doing that. If folks wanted to find out more about what you're doing, or maybe find a chapter of the local Sierra Club, if they're doing military stuff, if they want to do military stuff, how can they find it?
LORNETT: Oh, they can just go to our website. They could check out: https://www.sierraclub.org/military-outdoors. Or you can just go to the Sierra Club or if whatever city and state you're in, you can talk and type in it's there. If you're in California, you could type in Sierra Club, California and whatever city, and you can find the chapters.
We have 65 nationwide military outdoors website. You can find out lots of things about us. We have our blog, how to become a leaders, how to contact us and what’s going on with the military outdoors. And read articles and see some of the work that we're doing across the country to preserve the environment and also connect Veterans to nature.
DUANE: That's great. I will make sure that links to all of that are in the show notes. Lorenett, I really appreciate you coming on the show.
LORNETT: Uh, thank you very much for having me. And, um, if you need me to come on again and talk more about healing through nature, I'm more than happy.
Once again, we would like to thank this week's sponsor, PsychArmor. PsychArmor is 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. And you can find more about PsychArmor at www.psycharmor.org.
One of the points that I'd like to reiterate as Lornett And I both mentioned it in this show is how service members, Veterans and their families have been exposed to a wide range of cultures and environments throughout their military career. Not just overseas, but even being stationed at different parts of the country.
According to the US Census Bureau, just “Over 10% of Americans move out of their community in any given year and a staggering 72% of Americans live in or close to the city or town where they grew up.” There's a number of different reasons for that. But the fact is that people tend to stay where they are, except those that are affiliated with the military.
With more mobility, you have more exposure to different people, different cultures. Different environments.
If you never leave your hometown, you never exposed to the breathtaking beauty of the sunrise over the ocean, or a double rainbow of the mountains of the Hindu Kush. There've been times in my military career, like Lornett, that the environment that I found myself in was mind boggling and awe inspiring.
Sure it wasn't like I got there by going on a backpacking trip through Europe during a gap year. But I still found myself amazed by the beauty of nature. It gave me an, obviously it gave Lornett and appreciation for the world that we live in. And it's great that we can enjoy everything that nature has to offer after we leave the military and that programs like the Sierra Club Military Outdoors can help us do that.
The other point that I'd like to make is the benefits of outdoor and recreational therapy on psychological health and wellness. As a mental health clinician, you're never going to hear me say that a hike in the woods or a rafting trip will cure post-traumatic stress disorder or major depressive disorder. These are complex conditions. They have a psychological element in that part of it is related to how we think they have an emotional element, which is related to how we feel. And there's a biological and neurological element related to the physical and chemical reactions in our brain and nervous system.
These conditions have different intensities between different people and can even be greater or worse within an individual at different times. There are pharmaceutical interventions and therapeutic interventions, all based in evidence that can reduce the symptoms of the psychological impact of military service and sometimes even make it so the symptoms are gone altogether.
No amount of recreational therapy on its own is going to do that. However, you're also not going to hear me say, as a licensed mental health professional, that programs like Sierra Club Military Outdoors does not have an impact on the psychological health and wellbeing of those who served or their families.
Hikes and picnics and horseback riding may not cure illness, so to speak, but they will definitely increase wellness. Simply put, getting outside enjoying nature can help you feel better. It requires a movement in effort, always a good thing to help blood flow and lower cholesterol and all those things . It exposes you to fresh air and open environments, but it also broadens your mind, helps you experience new things, opens you up to the amazing beauty of the world around you. And my opinion while recreational therapy is not sufficient to “cure” mental health conditions that can be developed as a result of military service experiencing the outdoors is a necessary part of any recovery from anxiety, depression, traumatic stress reaction. Even recovery from addiction or feelings of isolation. Getting outdoors, whether for a two mile hike or a 10 mile hike can be extremely beneficial for your mental wellbeing. We're interested in learning more about doing that with Sierra Club, check out their website in the show notes.
For this week PsychArmor resource of the week, I'd like to share the PsychArmor course on Intimacy and Emotional Disconnection in Military Populations. This course investigates the links between emotional disconnection and relationship intimacy issues that are often seen among Veterans and active duty military couples.
You heard in Lornett at story about the service member, who reengaged with his daughter during a Sierra Club Military Outdoors event, and experienced such a change that his wife reached out to the organization afterwards. There are a number of reasons why service members and Veterans may disconnect from those that they care about. And you can learn more about those reasons through this course, you can check it out by going to link in the show notes.