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Join us as we talk with Marine Corps veteran Joel Chaverri, now a counselor at a VA Vet Center. Joel shares his journey from military service to helping fellow veterans, emphasizing that the support available at Vet Centers isn't just an offering- it's a benefit you've earned. If you're a veteran, all you need to do is take the first step by signing up with VA.
VA News podcast delivers the latest updates from the Department of Veterans Affairs, focusing on essential resources, benefits, and news that matter the most to veterans. Stay informed on the support and opportunities available to you.
The Department of Veterans Affairs does not endorse or officially sanction any entities that may be discussed in this podcast, nor any media, products or services they may provide.
This week's interview is with Joel Chaverri.
Joel Chaverri, he's a Marine Corps veteran, and he is a counselor at the Arlington, Texas
VA Vet Center.
Vet Centers are one of VA's most crucial and valuable asset in providing counseling to
veterans and their family members.
Joel's going to talk to us about his time in the military, his transition out, how he
got into counseling and his experience at Vet Centers and what everybody needs to know
about them in order to take advantage of this resource themselves, or to be able to
recommend it to somebody else.
Joel Chaverri, Marine Corps Reserve, 16 years, you were originally combat camera?
Combat correspondent.
Combat correspondent.
I apologize for the differences as there may be.
And if I've offended either party involved.
Well, nowadays they're trying to consolidate all this.
But yeah, back then you would have offended a lot of people for sure.
So the one thing that all veterans have in common where we start a lot of these interviews
is the decision to join the military, right?
That's something that no matter what branch we served in, no matter what our experiences
were in, it all goes back to day one when it started.
Tell us about your day one.
Well, I joined, I signed my paperwork maybe a few months before 9-11.
And then 9-11 happens.
And if anything, it probably solidified my decision to join the Marine Corps.
You know, I joined for lots of reasons.
I had some, my grandparents served in the military.
I had friends that had served in the military.
I wanted to do something bigger and better, right?
I don't know if you've ever been to the movies and you remember seeing there's a commercial
where, recruiting commercials where a Marine fights a giant flaming dragon with a sword.
What Marine does not, I think any Marine who's maybe, maybe I would say, I think if you're
like 28 and older, maybe, I think, yeah, if you're in your mid twenties or younger,
you probably, you may not remember.
You might've been too young, but yeah, I think I remember even seeing that when I was too
young to even know what the Marines were.
I said, okay, that's it done.
I want to fight a flaming dragon with a sword.
Where do I sign?
No, but, but really I just wanted to serve in some sort of way.
Like I've always had a call, I feel a call to serve and I mean, that's kind of where
it ends me here at the VA, but I've always kind of had that part of me.
And so I said, how can I do it the best I possibly can?
And like I said, you know, 9-11 then happened and really solidified that.
It's okay.
This is happening.
I'm glad I signed up.
Let's do this.
And then just a few months later, ship off to bootcamp.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Did you, so did you go into it knowing you were being combat correspondent?
Is that a contract that you, you arranged, were you one of the crazy ones that went open
contract and got lucky?
No, I picked that job.
Okay.
I picked that job.
It sounded interesting.
I did a little bit of journalism in high school.
Okay.
So it was kind of right in my lane.
So sure.
Yeah.
Tell me, I mean, so how much, how long after 9-11 did you ship off to bootcamp?
Like how long, how long did you have for that to sort of be in your brain before you went
off to actually be a part of the military?
Six or seven months.
Okay.
So six or seven months after that is when I yellow footprint footprints, right?
And shipped out to bootcamp.
What do you think, what do you think was the most drastic difference in the way you perceived
your upcoming career between September 10, 2001 and September 12, 2001?
I had a lot of people who were saying, do you still want to go?
I'm like, of course, absolutely.
I still want to go.
Yeah.
I mean, I want to go more now.
Right.
Yeah.
But it was scary.
It was scary.
Especially not really knowing at that time exactly where you would go, how you would
go there.
And there's a lot of confusion and questioning, but I'm glad I did it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Sure.
Tell me about it.
Tell me about a close friend or a great leader you had while you were in the military.
You can, you can choose either one, but tell me about that person.
So hard to do.
There's so many people when you, when you first asked that question, the first person
I think of was my, my first staff sergeant, when I got to my first reserve duty station
before I deployed or anything.
And he later became a gunner sergeant and he later became the sergeant major and, and
he moved on and I moved different directions, but we've always kind of stayed close.
And the really early, I mean, I can't stress enough the early lessons.
So here I am, I'm a PFC, then Lance Corporal, and he's a staff sergeant just right there.
Right when I landed my first duty station, the interactions I had with this man pretty
much decided the rest of what my career would look like.
And if you hear these stories a lot, talking with veterans, it is so true that the early
leaders you have really do influence the way you think about things.
And you know, here's a guy who, you know, he was the individual who Rusty Baker, so I'm
thinking of, he's the individual who called me and he said, Hey, Joel, are you sitting
down?
Because you're going to Iraq, right?
And he really kind of made me feel secure and safe through all these different transitions
as a deployed and came back and things like that.
Another person I'm thinking of, when you say who's someone you think about, when I was
in Iraq, there was someone who I was bunked with, we're in the same can, and he was a few
years older than me.
He was also a combat correspondent.
And that was Paul Light.
And Paul, because he had a couple years past me, he was really able to help me in a lot
of ways while I was deployed in Iraq, to where I didn't feel as alone, he was a good friend
and a mentor, we were the same rank.
But he just kind of filled a little bit of a mentor role in my life.
Because when you're deployed like that, it's scary.
You know, you don't say that it's scary.
Everyone's all tough.
But it's scary.
It's frightening to be there.
It's so many unknowns about when when's the next mortar gonna land on my head type of
thing.
Yeah.
And so to have a positive influence like that with Paul was good.
And he's a guy who I also stayed friends with for years, we just hang out last weekend.
You know, so sure.
There's two people I think of.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So normally, this is where I ask people, tell me about your transition out, or prompts your
transition out, but you have remained in the reserves 16 years, what's what's kept you
around?
Well, they haven't gotten rid of me yet, figured it out and kicked me out.
No, I, I have always said, Well, I joined in the Marine Corps Reserve, right, initially,
when I signed the paper, I joined the reserve, six year contract.
And then two years in is when I get deployed to Iraq.
I was in Iraq for from 2004 2005.
And when I got back, you go back to the normal reserve drilling status.
And then at the end of that six year period is kind of the point to where you would say,
Okay, am I where am I going to go?
And at that point, I really was I, I had anticipated to, to move on.
But then opportunities to continue serving, because usually when your six year contract
is up in the reserve, depending upon the unit, they say bye, because they don't have space
for you.
But an opportunities opened up for me to serve with a unit called Marine for Life.
And then later on with the wounded, which is part of the wounded warrior project.
So these opportunities open up and the door kind of opened.
And I said, Well, I yeah, I would love to stick around and just walk through that door.
And I've done that every time.
So each time where my contract would kind of be at an ending point, a door opened for
me to continue to serve in a different capacity.
And I did it.
Tell us how do you how do you get involved with VA then?
Something we see a lot from the veteran community is hire more veterans, right?
Like we want to see more veterans at VA, I still think that they don't understand how
many veterans really are already at VA.
How much of that played into your desire to come to VA and serve other veterans?
Well, you're right that a lot of people don't realize that.
And even here at the Vet Center, Registered Counseling Service, Vet Centers.
We hire a lot of veterans to be our counselors, you know, not exclusively, but the last numbers
I heard is around 75% of all employees at Vet Centers are veterans.
And then you got somewhere around half of them are Vietnam veterans.
And then about a third of them are Iraq, Afghanistan veterans.
Yeah.
Okay, so you walk into a Vet Center, you're just you're right, there's a lot of veterans
here.
And even the non veterans, spouse of a veteran family member somehow connected to the military
service.
I, you're right, I didn't know that when I got back, you know, I didn't think about the
VA veterans doing that kind of serving in that capacity, it didn't really occur to
me.
Matter of fact, when I got back from Iraq, I went back to my old job was working at Starbucks,
the barista makes coffee, you know, that's what I did.
And really, it was just through almost pure accident that I kind of stumbled upon someone
else who worked at the VA and said, Hey, like you kind of said, the VA is always recruiting
higher veterans.
And so I started to explore that and landed upon this.
My initial job at the VA was more of a outreach, community service, public relations type of
job, which what I did in the Marine Corps with public affairs, public relations.
So I said, Okay, I could do that.
You know, initially, I had thought that I would go to school and continue in public
affairs.
So I said, This would be great.
I'll go to the VA and work almost in the same type of job I did in the Marine Corps.
And that job was a sure it was a public relations person, but it was a public relations person
for the vet centers.
Yeah.
So when I first got hired, it was for the vet center, doing outreach and PR and things
like that to bring veterans in and let them know about that vet center benefit.
How, how long you been with vet centers now?
How long?
So I was hired in December 2005, December 2005.
Yeah.
So, so, so that's coming up on 13 years here almost.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, so if I'm, if I'm catching this time, I'm collecting a timeline correctly.
You got back from Iraq in March, so I was back from Iraq, you know, about 10 or nine
or 10 months before I landed the VA job.
Okay.
Well, um, so there's a lot of, a lot of overlap there, a lot of synergy almost, if you will,
with the, with your service and your continued service to veterans here at VA.
Yeah.
I almost didn't skip a beat.
I, I, I don't know where I would be if I hadn't gotten recruited the way I was and, and kind
of found, because I, like I said, I was looking into journalism, public affairs, but I don't
think that I would have been knowing myself, I wouldn't have been satisfied doing that.
I loved it in the Marine Corps.
I still love it, but I found so much more satisfaction doing what I do now.
Yeah.
Right.
Not just because I'm doing work as a social worker, but because I'm doing it for veterans
in the VA.
So it's just twice as rewarding.
Tell me, tell me about your first year or two as a social worker.
The VA, it's great that we're hiring veterans.
We want to hire more veterans.
And then it's great that we're hiring veterans to be therapists, counselors also.
But the unintended consequence of that is that those veterans may have themselves been
through traumatic experiences and we don't know what they've done to take care of themselves.
And so we have to be aware of that.
People are starting, look, people are paying attention to this in the VA.
People are paying attention to this in the research.
I just read some research recently that was exploring this shared trauma, similar traumas.
I was in combat.
I had traumatic experiences in combat.
And now here I am providing therapy to veterans who had the same experiences.
Am I okay?
Am I well enough to be able to treat them?
And how much is me seeing those individuals contributing to my own personal burnout?
Burnout is something that all social workers, all therapists really have to be aware of often.
And you add on to it that you're a veteran who might have had trauma experiences that's
the same as your clients.
So it can be a little complicated.
So I'm glad that people are paying attention to this, that research is being done to make
sure that we can avoid burnout, that we can take care of them because it's true.
You asked about my first time, first year or two in the VA as a social worker.
One of my first clients, he doesn't know this, one of my first clients was in the same battle
that I was.
No kidding.
In Fallujah.
And he's telling me about streets he was going down, about firefights he was in.
And I remember the names of the streets, those particular days and firefights he was talking
about.
And I never told him that I did that because, well, it's not about me, it's about him.
But my initial reaction was to want to share the experience, hey, look, you know, let me
tell you about what I did.
But what I've learned is that the camaraderie that you can build with a veteran client by
them knowing that you're also a veteran, that only takes you so far.
The fact that I'm a veteran and we have other veterans working here, that helps a lot of
our clients get in the door the first time.
To walk in knowing that, okay, there's someone who understands, who gets it, but that only
gets them in the door.
If you actually really want to help them and get them past and help them decrease their
symptoms and improve their lives and decrease the impact that PTSD have on their lives,
it takes good clinical skills.
Simply being a veteran isn't going to make that veteran somehow magically, you know,
be cured of PTSD.
It gets them in the door, but really it's building rapport, building relationship, having
good clinical skills that gets them past that.
That was my first few years as a social worker, was recognizing the limits of that simply
being a veteran isn't going to solve everything.
Just because I'm a veteran, I'm not going to be able to care for every single person,
that I really needed to build those clinical skills.
That was, I mean, proving grounds right there because you're right.
It can hurt you.
The therapist can be impacted by hearing these stories and by, because, you know, we care
so much.
I mean, I care so much about my clients and I hear these stories.
I mean, I'm sometimes, I'm, you know, I can be sad, right?
But I think it's important.
And what I learned back then, I had good mentors at that time to help me and good supervision
and consultation and all the kind of things that the VA is able to provide was that we
need to recognize how much it's hurting us sometimes, be able to bring that up, talk
about that with somebody and work through that ourselves.
Because you know, we're not just veterans, human beings and we're going to be affected.
So that was a really important thing for me to learn really on.
And I think it's really important for all veterans who work in the VA to know too that
it's okay if you're impacted by these kinds of things, it's okay to ask for help.
And that makes you a better therapist and a better counselor if you know how to ask for
help and know how to get, you know, assistance yourself as you're going through this process.
Yeah.
I guess, how often do you see, what's the average frequency that you're seeing clients?
Every Vet Center works a little bit differently.
The workload, the amount of people who are coming in every day with 300 locations nationwide,
some are located right next to military installations, some are located a little bit more buried
into rural areas of the community.
So the frequency of visits are different.
But for myself and this Vet Center, six or seven clients a day would be a maximum because
I meet with folks for 45 minutes to an hour.
And so, you know, that's a full day right there.
But then we also have groups.
Sure.
You know, so and groups can be eight to 12 people in a group.
So you might have one, maybe two groups in a day.
So in that kind of, in that case, you might be seeing 20, 30 people in one particular day
potentially.
Sure.
Right.
And then you fan that out to a week.
And so now you're talking about seeing a couple hundred people a week.
Right.
So it really depends, though, on each counselor, how many groups they might have, how many
people they see.
But we're always paying attention to workload.
You don't want to overrun somebody.
Caseload is one of the biggest contributors to burnout.
Yeah.
And if you're seeing too many people, you can get burned out.
So you got to even that out between the rest of the staff.
But for any one veteran, how often might you be seeing them?
And you can ballpark this.
Oh, yeah.
Well, the general rhythm of this, and I'll say a good starting point with almost any
client that comes in, we usually start around once a week.
We're going to see that veteran once a week, depending upon severities.
If they're in crisis, two or three times a week, if that's what it takes.
And then if as people start to, as symptoms start to decrease over time, then we might
change that to every two weeks.
When I sit down with a veteran, one of the first things we talk about, and I learned that
you learn this in school, man, you learn this in school, one of the first things you talk
about is what's our last visit.
Interesting.
What's the last visit going to look like?
Because if you have to come here for the rest of your life, I'm not doing my job, right?
My job is to get you to a point where you don't have to come here anymore.
That's super interesting.
It's so counterintuitive.
Right.
Yeah.
To how we approach these types of things.
Yes.
So, you know, they call it termination.
It's this horrible word, but the idea is, when are we going to terminate?
The branding on that could be better.
Right.
They can brand that.
When are we going to terminate sessions?
When's the end going to look like?
And we set quantifiable goals, okay?
We want to get to, if it was five night wires a week, we want to get to four.
That's an example, right?
Okay.
A quantifiable goal.
We want to move you to a direction where you don't have to come here.
We don't want you to be dependent, okay?
Because we want to breed independence.
And so, I talk about that with everybody and usually we'll have treatment plans and goals
that are set up in such a way that allow us to review that and say, okay, well, after
so many weeks or so many months, let's go back.
Have we met those goals?
Are we at a point now to where you can move on?
And even moving on, look, we'll never say you can't come back to the Vet Center, but
if I get to an ending point with a lot of veterans, what we'll do is say, okay, well,
let's schedule an appointment maybe a quarter, in the next quarter or something like that.
I'll schedule an appointment three or four months out or, and of course, I'll have veterans
that will call after a couple of years and just want to check in.
That's fine too.
Or maybe we pivot to a different kind of treatment therapy, right?
With some of the other things we do with the art, guitar, Tai Chi that we do, all these
other non-traditional therapies, we can move them into a different type of treatment that
might change the way that they're interacting with the Vet Center.
Once you're a client with the Vet Center, you'll always be a client with the Vet Center.
But at the same time, I don't want you to have to come here for the rest of your life.
So when you get to that, I don't know what the average amount of time is from first visit
to last visit, but whatever that time period is, as you're approaching, as you're sort
of in that home stretch of termination or discontinuing therapy with that, how nervous
do your clients get that that routine visit is about to be let go of?
If you've done your job right, they shouldn't be nervous because they know it's coming.
So the idea is that at the same time you're decreasing the symptoms, you're increasing
their personal confidence and their ability to go without it.
I think that a lot of Veterans are pretty confident knowing that the Vet Center will
always be here for them.
So even though that they know that, okay, so we've scheduled this particular date to
be your last date, that doesn't mean our relationship is end.
You can always come back in the future.
So they kind of have that as this sort of safety net.
But if you've done it right, there shouldn't be a whole lot of jitters or nervousness or
anxiety about it.
The idea is that you've accomplished some great things and now it's time for you to
move on.
I mean, that should be the goal.
Look, to put it bluntly, we work in the federal government, right?
And there's so much bureaucracy and red tape and stuff around like what we can do, what
we can't do and discussions and people want to know if they're cleared to say something
or whatever.
It's so refreshing to be able to just sit down with someone who works in the VA, who
is serving Veterans, who can just openly discuss the work that's being done here, the challenges,
the parts where VA is not doing things right, where we are doing things right.
And I think these are the conversations that are valuable to have as VA looks to not only
improve its care to Veterans, but improve the Veterans confidence that they're going
to be able to provide that care.
Does that make you know what I'm saying?
So I appreciate you sitting down and having an open discussion about this and really letting
the audience know the reality here at VA that there are Veterans here that are working here.
There's people of all segments of society that are here that are available and that
are ready and I don't know if eager is the right word there for but inspired to help Veterans.
Well, this took to your time too.
So thank you for your time and doing this and setting all this up and making it work.
You know, I mean, this is a really cool format, you know, so I'm glad I was able to
participate.
So thanks.