The Common Veterans

Season 4: Episode 7: Own the Damn Story

What happens when Veterans stop trying to tell the “perfect” story and start telling the honest one? In this episode of Common Veterans, the table gets practical about the power of storytelling. Not storytelling as performance, but storytelling as a tool for resilience, connection, healing, and helping others understand what lived experience really means. Guest host SGT Eric Donoho, U.S. Army Retired, joins the conversation. Eric is a decorated combat Veteran, Purple Heart recipient, author of Canyon of Hope, and a national advocate for Veterans and military families. His work focuses on moral injury, healing after war, and helping others find meaning through truth and connection. This discussion breaks down real stories in real time: what to keep, what to cut, and how tone changes meaning depending on the audience. A story told to another Veteran may land differently than the same story told to a civilian, a spouse, a child, or a room full of strangers. The episode explores how Veterans carry stories, how those stories shape identity, and how lived experience can become more than memory. It can become a tool. In this episode: * Why storytelling matters for Veterans * How resilience shows up through lived experience * What details make a story stronger * How tone changes depending on the audience * Why owning your story can help others find their way Whether you have told your story a hundred times, avoided telling it altogether, or are still trying to understand what it means, this conversation is about learning how to carry it with purpose. Guest Host: Eric Donoho Producer: Sarah Holmes #CommonVeterans #Veterans #Storytelling #MilitaryPodcast #VeteranSupport #Resilience #MoralInjury #PurpleHeart #HealingAfterWar #FreedomSystem

Season 4: Episode 6: The Stuff We Don't Diagnose

The Stuff We Don’t Diagnose is a conversation about the weight people carry when life does not fit neatly into a label. In this episode of Common Veterans, we sit down with Reverend Pastor Mason Vieth to talk about the things that do not always show up in a chart, a report, or a diagnosis, but still shape the way people live, think, and relate to the world around them. This episode steps away from clinical framing and leans into lived experience. We talk about moral injury, guilt, anger, avoidance, silence, faith, and the long shadow certain moments can leave behind. Some experiences do not sit right with who we believe we are, and even when time moves on, part of us can stay caught there. That is where this conversation begins. Pastor Mason Vieth brings a perspective that is both personal and pastoral. As Kenny and Tony’s home church pastor, he knows them well enough to keep the conversation honest, grounded, and, when needed, from going too far off the rails. His role in this episode is not to hand out easy answers. It is to help make room for reflection, accountability, forgiveness, and hope without pretending every wound can be explained away. Together, this conversation explores what happens when emotions no longer move in straight lines. Anger does not always have a clear target. Guilt does not always fade with time. Avoidance can look like staying busy, shutting down, laughing things off, isolating, or refusing to revisit certain memories. On the surface, that may look like coping. Underneath, it can be evidence of something unresolved still asking to be acknowledged. One of the central ideas in this episode is that not everything needs to be diagnosed in order to be real. There are experiences that carry deep emotional and spiritual weight without fitting neatly into a category. That does not make them less important. If anything, it makes conversations like this more necessary. In this episode, we talk about: moral injury and the burden that can linger when an experience does not sit right with who you believe you are guilt, regret, anger, and resentment that do not always make sense on the surface avoidance, silence, and the ways people distance themselves from pain faith, forgiveness, and accountability without easy answers the importance of being seen and heard without being reduced to a diagnosis This is one of those episodes that does not rush toward a solution. It sits in the hard space on purpose. It makes room for honesty, reflection, and recognition. Sometimes the first step is not explanation. Sometimes it is simply naming what has been carried for a long time. Guest: Reverend Pastor Mason Vieth Podcast: Common Veterans Slainte

Season 4: Episode 5: Permission to Fail

Episode 5: Permission to Fail Veterans are good at telling the version of the story that makes sense. Service. Transition. Forward movement. Progress. What often gets left out are the moments in between — the jobs that did not work out, the leadership decisions that fell short, the relationships that took a hit, and the seasons where nothing felt as steady as it was supposed to. In this episode, the hosts take a more honest look at what failure can mean after service. Not as a dramatic ending, but as part of the road that many Veterans quietly walk. This is a conversation about setbacks, identity shock, hard lessons, and the uncomfortable reality that growth often comes through struggle rather than in spite of it. Too often, failure is treated like something to hide or explain away. Veterans especially can feel pressure to present a clean, polished version of life after the military — one where discipline always wins, experience always translates, and the next step always makes sense. But real life is rarely that neat. Sometimes the plan falls apart. Sometimes the transition hits harder than expected. Sometimes what looked like the right move turns out to be the wrong one. FreedomSystem.org [https://FreedomSystem.org] joins the conversation to talk about what they see in the Veteran community when those moments happen. They discuss the pattern of Veterans knowing help is there, delaying the reach for it, and then eventually showing up when life has pushed them to a point where something has to change. It is a real look at what failure can stir up — and what can begin when it is finally faced head-on. This episode is not about glorifying mistakes or pretending every setback is somehow inspiring. It is about ownership, reflection, and perspective. It is about understanding that failure does not cancel out growth. In many cases, it creates the conditions for it. The suck is real. The frustration is real. But so is the possibility that what felt like a breaking point was actually the beginning of a better footing. If you have ever felt like your story got messy after service, this conversation is for you. If you have ever looked back at a bad season and realized it taught you more than an easy win ever could, this one will hit home. We are The Common Veterans. Clink.

Season 4: Episode2: The Translation Lie

Introduction One of the most common pieces of advice Veterans hear during transition is simple: “Translate your MOS.” The idea sounds reasonable. Replace acronyms with civilian terminology. Turn missions into projects. Convert leadership into management language. Take the language of the military and make it sound like something a corporate hiring manager might recognize. But for many Veterans, that advice never quite works the way it is supposed to. In this episode of Common Veterans, we examine what we call The Translation Lie — the assumption that transition is primarily a matter of converting military language into corporate language. The Limits of Translation Military service is built around mission clarity, hierarchy, and shared expectations. Civilian organizations operate differently, often with less structure and far less shared context. When Veterans are told to simply “translate” their MOS, the result can feel forced. The words may change, but the experience behind them often becomes diluted. Leadership, responsibility, and decision-making shaped in a military environment rarely fit neatly into a few lines of corporate language. Real Conversations About Resumes In this conversation, we walk through examples many Veterans recognize — resumes that sound impressive but say very little, LinkedIn advice built around buzzwords, and well-intended transition guidance that oversimplifies the reality of military experience. The result can be frustration on both sides. Veterans struggle to communicate what they actually did, and employers struggle to understand the depth of responsibility that service often requires. Bridging Two Different Worlds The real challenge of transition is not just language. It is culture. Veterans benefit from learning how civilian organizations define responsibility, leadership, and accountability. At the same time, employers benefit from understanding the environments where Veterans developed their experience — environments where decisions are often made under pressure and leadership begins early. When both sides understand each other better, the conversation changes. Special Thanks This episode also gave us the opportunity to sit down with Ty Bancroft of Bancroft Companies, who joined the conversation and offered perspective from the civilian leadership side of the table. We also want to offer a sincere thank you to Ty and the Bancroft Companies for their generosity in supporting the Common Veterans podcast. Their support helped us upgrade the video equipment used to record these conversations, allowing us to continue sharing these discussions with a wider audience. Closing Transition from military service is rarely solved by a simple formula. It takes time, reflection, and honest conversations about how experience translates across two very different professional cultures. At Common Veterans, we believe those conversations matter. The more openly Veterans talk about the reality of transition, the more prepared the next generation will be when their time comes. If you are looking for community, resources, or conversations with others who understand the journey, visit FreedomSystem.org [https://FreedomSystem.org]. Common Veterans We are the Common Veterans. Slainte.

Season 4: Episode3: When the Uniform

Introduction We begin the way we always do. Host roll call. A moment to recognize the voices in the room and the stories behind them. This episode is brought to you by Winter Oak Studio, who continues to support conversations that matter. Toast: “To the Uniform. There’s ceremony when you put it on. There’s paperwork when you take it off. There’s nothing in between. To the uniform that formed us, the silence that followed it, the mistakes that shaped us, and the purpose that still calls us. Slainte.” The Last Day We take a slow walk through the final day. CIF turn-in. Signatures collected. Gear accounted for. A last formation that feels both significant and strangely procedural. Then comes the drive off post for the last time. No band. No closing speech. Just an open road and the realization that something structured and familiar has ended. It isn’t dramatic. It’s administrative. And somehow that makes it heavier. Expectations vs. Reality Most of us imagined transition would feel like relief. More freedom. Better pay. Less pressure. Instead, many of us found something else: silence. No rank on your chest. No clear chain of command. No defined mission. And eventually, someone asks, “So what do you do?” It’s a simple question. But when your identity was once summarized in a title, answering it can feel more complicated than expected. Identity Shock When the rank is removed, what remains? That question isn’t tactical. It’s philosophical. If identity has been tied closely to function, what happens when the function changes? Are you still the same man or woman without the uniform? Without the authority? Without the structure that once shaped your days? No checklist prepares you for that internal recalibration. Emotional Collision Transition carries emotions that don’t sit neatly together. Pride in having served. Grief that it ended. Relief mixed with longing. You may find yourself missing people you once complained about. Missing routines you once counted down to escape. Missing the clarity of knowing exactly where you stood. And at times, standing in a crowded civilian space can feel strangely isolating. Mistakes We Made Some of us withdrew. It felt easier to assume, “They wouldn’t understand,” than to risk explaining. Often some of us carried ego into rooms that didn’t operate on rank. We measured civilian life against military standards and quietly judged what didn’t align. Many of us resisted help. We expected structure to appear on its own, yet expected purpose to be assigned. Things Nobody Warned You About Your family built a rhythm while you were serving. Reintegration means learning that rhythm, not overriding it. Civilians do not organize their lives around mission clarity and ambiguity is normal for 'em. You will miss parts of service you once disliked. That realization can be unsettling; most importantly, brotherhood does not automatically continue. It must be maintained intentionally. Theology & Philosophy of Transition For many of us, service felt sacred. There was meaning in the discipline. A kind of liturgy in the repetition. Civilian life can feel ordinary by comparison; ordinary does not mean meaningless. The Warrior Principle A warrior without direction can become restless. Restlessness, left unattended, can turn destructive... the work of transition is not to erase the warrior. It is to redirect him. To rebuild tribe with intention. To choose a mission rather than wait for one to be assigned. This requires humility. And patience. And community. Closing Taking off the uniform does not remove your calling. It simply changes the environment in which that calling is lived out. Our encouragement in this episode is simple: call one Veteran. Have one honest conversation. Admit one struggle out loud. Silence loses power when it is shared. If you are looking for community or structured support, FreedomSystem.org [https://FreedomSystem.org] continues to build spaces where Veterans can reconnect with purpose. WE ARE THE COMMON VETERANS Clink.