Episode 24 – Exploring identity and culture with Métis Veteran Shauna Mulligan

MIND BEYOND THE MISSION EPISODE 24: EXPLORING IDENTITY AND CULTURE WITH METIS VETERAN SHAUNA MULLIGAN

Brian

You found our podcast. We are Mind Beyond the Mission. This is a podcast about Veterans and their Families and specifically, mental health. What goes on in our lives, what goes on in our heads. We’re not talking to you as doctors or professionals, we’re talking to you about living with it and what it’s like. Brian McKenna, 19 years in the Canadian Forces. I’m joined by my partner, Laryssa Lamrock.

Laryssa

Veteran Family member. I’m a proud military brat. My husband served in the military, proud military mom. We’re really excited about this podcast to delve into issues that are important to the Veteran and Family community.

Brian

Join us as we talk about mental health from the perspective of Veterans and their Families.

[music]

Laryssa

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Mind Beyond the Mission. We’re here this time in Winnipeg.

Brian

Winnipeg, Winterpeg. It’s not the winter yet.

Shauna Mulligan

Mani-snow-ba.

Brian

Yesterday we did get a hint of that cold breeze that Winnipeg’s known for, but it’s a little warm-ish.

Laryssa

A little warm-ish. Usually, now we’re not getting snow until well after Halloween.

Brian

We’re joined today in Winnipeg by Shauna Mulligan. Shauna is a friend of mine from a number of years and also a Veteran and a member of the Métis community. Whenever we get a chance to have a conversation like this, I don’t always know when I go into it what I’m going to learn from it, but I’ve always learned something from talking to you. Here’s another chance and welcome to Mind Beyond the Mission.

Shauna

Hi, bonjour, aaniin, tân’si. Really great to see you guys.

Brian

First thing I want to crack on with is, when I got recruited, I’d always had the idea that I wanted to do it. Then I went to the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver. I saw what I thought was the coolest recruiting display ever. The coolest looking guy there, I went and talked to him. He said things, and I just did what he said, which was, “Go to this address and tell him you want to be part of this unit,” and then you go. I joined because of the brochure. I wanted to repel and I wanted to do crazy things and be able to tell my friends about it. What did you join for? What got you –

Shauna

Interestingly enough, my story is a little bit two-pronged. Part of it was because my Family on both sides, my mom and my dad’s Family, have a very significant military history. I felt almost like this sense of Family duty to join the military, especially because my papa, my mother’s father, who’s Métis, he and I, as a matter of fact, used it as a point of connection, especially once I had gotten older, mainly because I had made some offhanded comments about one of the units that is local here. He went, “Oh, yes, I know them.” It was literally a point for us to be able to have a conversation.

Brian

These conversations you’re talking like they went deep into your childhood when you’re little here?

Shauna

No. As a matter of fact, it was about his time in service. We were able to connect on what it meant to be a soldier and how each of us saw what being a soldier meant.

Brian

How many people in your Family, including you now have served in the Canadian Forces?

Shauna

Myself, my stepdad, my dad, my grandfather on both my mother and my father’s side, my great grandparents on both my mother and father’s side.

Brian

Do you think that that story is as understood as it should be? We often hear that indigenous people have been serving their country for a long time. Often, though, I think of, one person joined or maybe one or two, but you almost have that maritime story where half of the Family has worn the uniform in one way or the other, right?

Shauna

Pretty much. Quite honestly, military service within a number of communities, whether they be First Nation, Métis, or Inuit, it’s a point of pride for a lot of communities. It’s one of those things where we don the uniform not for this desire to go to war, it’s literally so that we can learn to enforce peace.

Laryssa

I talk a lot about community in the podcast and within the work that we do. I myself really strongly identify as part of a Veteran Family community. It sounds like that was a little bit for you, too. There was a sense of community and almost culture within your Family. So many people in your Family served. I’m curious to learn how or if there was an intersection or crossover or how part of your Métis culture might have intersected with military culture.

Shauna

Unfortunately, I did not identify as Métis while I was still serving. I come from a generation of people where saying or openly claiming your Métis status or your Métis identity was really not a good thing. Coming out of the generation where Métis folk were still considered traitors or things like that, I at the time of my service did not feel comfortable identifying.

It took until I started going back to university for me to finally feel comfortable enough to say, “This is part of my identity,” which interestingly enough, my grandfather while he was in and this was one of the conversations that we had because I had asked him like, “Knowing you are Métis, what was military life like for you while you were in service?” It was interesting that he told me, “Oh, I didn’t experience, things like racism or anything like that,” but then he went on to, of course, tell me stories of what we now call microaggressions. Small offhanded comments about you’re one of the good ones kind of deal.

Brian

I look back and my folks were half-English and half-Irish immigrant Family. You’re an Indigenous person, I’m not. We came here when I was young and everything about the crown for me is rather pleasant. When I had a cap badge on my head, no point of that cap badge has done anything bad to my Family, done anything bad to my community. It really matched. I could put that thing on and not have a problem. How do you think this is felt in indigenous communities? Especially those folks that serve, whether it’s military or some other way, there will be pride, but is there a conflict there? Do people feel that they’re wearing something that’s hurt their community in the past?

Shauna

Some communities do. Again, it all depends on the community. I have found throughout the course of my research that if there is that historical connection, say, let’s take, for example, Six Nations Grand Reserve. Many of their community members have significant military history and the town itself has a significant military history. Or say, take, for example, Perry Island, where one of Canada’s most well-known snipers, an Anishinaabe man, Corporal Francis Pegahmagabow, that is a point of pride for that community. They are very supportive of the military and what the military was able to bring to their communities.

Laryssa

You and I have had conversations about this particular thing I’m going to ask you before. I just wanted to say, I’ve always appreciated, Shauna, your willingness to be open and to teach me about your culture more broadly and your community, because I feel like sometimes I ask some really ignorant questions and I wonder how many other people might feel that way. I just want to thank you for that.

My two children are of Indigenous heritage, and I always enjoy trying to learn more about their culture. We attend a local powwow every year. I have been very humbled by what I observed there. Usually, the beginning of the powwow, they do a grand entry, which seems very sacred. What humbles me is the fact that as part of that grand entry, they invite all Veterans to participate in that. Given what Brian was talking about, what Métis, First Nation, and Indigenous people have suffered from the crown, that they are able to make that invitation.

Shauna

Again, there are some communities that are very much not interested in fostering that relationship. At powwows, Veterans serve an important function. It’s literally to ensure that the powwow ground that we’ll be dancing on, is safe, literally and figuratively and spiritually as well. The other thing that we do is if there is an eagle feather that falls off something like regalia, it’s the Veterans that are supposed to go first of all and honor that eagle feather, but then also assist with the retrieval of the eagle feather. The teaching that I’ve received in regards to that is that it is literally the representation of a fallen soldier.

Brian

Oh, wow. Okay.

Shauna

Hence why we as Veterans go to basically recover that and of course, acknowledge, first of all, that soldier has given the ultimate sacrifice.

Brian

There we go. I didn’t know that.

Laryssa

That’s beautiful.

Brian

One thing that we have talked about in the past, you’ve helped me get some progress on, but I’m still stuck on, is it’s very common, especially when you work in government spaces to open whatever you’re doing with an Indigenous land acknowledgment, for example. I still feel a little bit like an imposter, like I’m saying something that I don’t truly understand. I’ve asked various indigenous folks, what does this look like? Cultural appropriation, when a guy like Brian gets up there and says this statement.

I’ve also had some places, they’ll be talking almost like a legal point of view, like this land is owned by or governed under this treaty. One thing you’d said to me was land, like this thing under our feet, we’re standing on this rock, and what if in the course of not paying attention to that, we’re doing damage to it today? That stuck with me. I still don’t know exactly what to do with that, though, but that’s where I’m at, is I still feel sometimes that I’m faking it.

I want to do what’s right, but I don’t really know. How does that come across when you go into an hour-long meeting and everyone says in the first 30 seconds, they read out this line that they probably don’t understand?

Shauna

Oh, wait, I can recite it off.

Brian

Then we just get on with sometimes everything that we’re going to do anyhow.

Shauna

Usually when people ask me about land acknowledgments, usually it’s, “Hey, can you do our land acknowledgment?” Certainly, I don’t mind doing that, but the reason behind land acknowledgments was to have everybody basically sit and go – first of all, this idea of land belonging or land ownership is actually quite a foreign concept within a number of Indigenous communities. The land is something that was gifted to us by Creator, and that literally everything we need is on the land in order to live a good and healthy life.

By acknowledging the land, you’re also acknowledging the fact that the land itself is a being. That is something that a lot of people do struggle with, because we see things like rocks or trees or plants or categorize them as inanimate objects, but they’re not technically. They have a living spirit within them. That’s reflected certainly within our languages, too.

Oftentimes, First Nations languages, even the variants of Michif that I’ve learned, all of their descriptors in regards to their language place those beings basically as living beings, as opposed to, say, in English, it’s an inanimate object. It’s interesting to see how the land acknowledgment I think misses that point.

Brian

After we had that first conversation about this, one thing I started – this is going to sound strange. I started thinking of military drip pants. I’m talking about that big hunk of plastic you fire under the cylinder block of your vehicles –

Shauna

To catch the oil.

Brian

 – to catch the oil. I’m thinking if we’re up in the OPSEE training area of Chilliwack, and we’re not putting that under there, that’s going into the fish. The Stó:lō band’s just down there. If we’re using more cars than we need to, the pollution’s going in the air and blowing that way. Who’s that way? What community lives that way? It’s weird where my thoughts started going, but that was one thing that came out of that conversation was, what are we doing to the water, the air, the land in this briefing, in this training, in this activity we’re about to do? That, to me, just speaking as myself, is way more of a way that I think I could honor the land than repeating a line that I don’t truly understand at the beginning of a session.

Shauna

Interestingly enough, Laryssa, I remember posing a challenge to you while we were still in Zoom that the next time you went to go and get a drink of water, be sure to thank the water. We had, of course, a water ceremony for Atlas’s roundtable discussion. Has that challenge that I posed to you changed the way you think of water?

Laryssa

I think first I want to say it’s changed the way I do land acknowledgments, that conversation because for a long time, I didn’t do them. I’m sure a lot of my colleagues or people on meetings might have thought I was being a jerk, being ignorant. The reason I didn’t do them is because I felt ingenuine until I had a conversation with you. It does change the way I do land acknowledgments. I appreciate it and thank you for educating me because my boys are Indigenous.

I very intentionally before I’m asked when I’m chairing a meeting or something to do a land acknowledgement that I do some research beforehand. Now I know where my local water at home is sourced, I do know about a local Indigenous Family who had a number of people that served in the military. I learned about where they served. I learned about if they had passed in service of their country. Every time I now do a land acknowledgment, I learned a little bit more about Turtle Island, why it is called Turtle Island. Every time I do a land acknowledgment, I’m challenging myself to educate myself a little bit more, which I think is part of the intention.

Shauna

Absolutely.

Laryssa

That is definitely what it has changed for me. One thing I wanted to ask you about, you talked about spirit, and I think spirit has been a part of your journey. You’ve done a digital story with us. I wondered if you wanted to share that. Was that connection to spirit something that you always had, or was it something that, as you mentioned, you started to identify as Métis and share it more openly and be proud of that culture? Was there a time that shifted?

Shauna

I’ve always been a fairly spiritual person, but the practice has varied, of course, over my life. I had thought at one point in time, certainly like in high school when I had enlisted in the military that these teachings, these ceremony practices, these spiritual practices were not open to me. Once figuring out that it’s like, no, I am a Métis person, I have those Family connections here too. As a matter of fact, my Métis Family is originally from St. Norbert. They had left, of course, during the uprising, taken script and had gone out to Saskatchewan, where my grandfather is originally from.

We didn’t really talk a lot about the spirit until, of course, I joined into the military and spending more time with my grandfather. He would say things to me like, “Remember while you’re out in Shiloh playing silly bugger with the guys over a weekend, remember that the land is there. Remember that the spirit is there. Remember that you don’t have to go into a physical location in order to be able to have a conversation with a higher power.”

That effectively our church is the land, is being on the land, is literally the earth, the wind and the water, hokey as it sounds. Those are literally the things that we need in order to be able to survive. Having a good relationship with those things means acknowledging when you’re doing harm on them.

Brian

One thing in my line of work that I’ve been forced to realize, people will ask me sometimes, “What do Veterans think about X? Who are they voting for? How do they feel about whatever the new thing is we’re buying or not getting?” I’ve found myself always saying, “There’s 600,000 of them, they probably have 600,000 different opinions. Maybe I can talk to you about what most might feel or the people I talk to.”

At the same time, I would turn around to someone and go, “How do Indigenous people feel about X?” As if I’m just finishing explaining to one group of people that we have different opinions and we see things differently. It’s not this monolithic beast called the Veterans. Do you find often that when people find out you’re Indigenous, they almost ask you to speak on behalf of this pan-Canadian, over a million-person entity, which is the Indigenous Canadians?

Shauna

I do get that a lot. I do try and remind folks, much like when I was still teaching, that obviously, we’re not this monolithic group that using that approach is basically – it’s reductionist for the lack of a better term. The big takeaway is that each of our communities is individual even as individuals can be. There’s a saying within our communities where it’s like, if you ask one person their opinion, you’re going to get three different answers. It will literally depend on the person, the time, the day, the specific context of what you’re asking them about.

Brian

Optimistically, when I hear that question about my community, I feel sometimes like, “Good, this person wants to know. The pessimistic side of me says, “You don’t want to engage the community. You want to just have asked one of us what we all think, and then you’re going to disappear.” Otherwise, what does British Columbia think? How’s Saskatchewan voting next week? In many, many different ways.

Shauna

It is one of those things where I try and be mindful that I’m not speaking on behalf especially the Métis Nation, mainly because I am not a member of the Métis Nation, so I don’t want to say or speak on their behalf. They have, of course, their own people who are able to speak on things. Certainly, I can speak to my own experiences. That is one of the biggest fears in a lot of communities, especially as a researcher. Communities are always worried. First of all, what are you going to do with the research once it’s done? Second of all, what are you going to do with our relationship once you’ve gotten or extracted the research?

That’s been something that I have personally taken that rather than just ending the research and being like, “Thanks very much for the info. I’m out of here,” I go, “No, I want to continue to maintain the relationship.” That’s important within a lot of Indigenous communities, whether they be First Nation, Métis, or Inuit.

Laryssa

Is that counter to research ethics?

Shauna

It can be.

Laryssa

Because normally after you’re done, your engagement, you’re –

Shauna

Supposed to not contact.

Laryssa

– supposed to not, but when you’re dealing with that particular community, it’d be insulting.

Shauna

Truly. There is some flexibility now, especially because myself and a number of folks within the Indigenous Studies Department at the U of M have been working towards making campus policy and the campus itself a little bit more Indigenous-friendly or indigenized. That was one of the things that we brought up, was the fact that Indigenous communities are often dealing with situations that we wouldn’t be dealing with in an urban context.

Brian

I’m from Ottawa and here to help is probably the best line to instill fear in soldiers when they’re –

Shauna

Truly.

Brian

People don’t understand what they’re saying when they say that. It’s like, “Oh no, you’re here to crush, cut, evaluate.” That’s the military context of that. Yet I still find when I’m dealing with colleagues or other people in these medical and government spaces that they want to show up and start work right away. They’re just going to show up and go, “Hey, I’m from X organization, answer my questionnaire because we know something you don’t. We’ve got this amazing medical system. Just start talking to us.”

I’m looking at it thinking, some of the biggest scars of our country have been when Ottawa brought a great idea to them, to other parts of this land, specifically to Indigenous communities. Does that resonate with you?

Shauna

It does. As a matter of fact, I do know a number of people within the community that keep government services at arm’s length. It’s one of those things where they go, “We know you’ve said this, we’re not actually hopeful you’re going to follow through with it.” Oftentimes now what I do is, and this is something that is inherent within our communities, if we’re getting together for a specific reason, it’s not like, “We’re all here, let’s jump into it.” Something that basically that we do is that we visit with each other before we get into the work.

It’s literally, “Hey, how’s your cousin Johnny doing?” Or, “Hey, Uncle Joe, I heard that you were having trouble with an illness. Can you tell me about that?” Or, “There’s been a birth in the Family or there’s been a marriage.” You actually sit down and develop and foster good relationships before you get into the work.

Laryssa

I have one of those awkward questions for you.

Shauna

Oh, yay.

Laryssa

It might seem like semantics. Do you consider yourself or do you prefer to be referred to as an Indigenous Veteran or a Veteran who is Indigenous?

Shauna

You could technically call me a Michif Veteran, and I would be okay with that because then that way you’re being specific in both contexts. The term Indigenous is used as this umbrella term, but we have to remember that it encapsulates much like the Canadian Constitution of 1982 hereby recognizing and affirming the existing rights of Aboriginal people of Canada, which is pretty close to the terminology. The word Indigenous encapsulates First Nation, Inuit, and Métis.

Oftentimes, and this is something that I encourage my students to do, is if you are going to talk about a specific group of people, identify that group of people. If you’re talking about First Nations, Anishinaabe, Nehiyaw or Stó:lō or any number of First Nation communities all across Canada and the 500 reserves across Canada, or you’re talking about Métis people who are usually categorized under this massive monolithic umbrella.

Even then, there’s differences within Métis communities. Are you English-speaking Métis? Are you French-speaking Métis? Are you more connected to First Nations side as opposed to, say, European Roman Catholic side? There’s so much variation within our communities, even First Nation, Inuit, and Métis.

Brian

We’ve spent the last couple of days at a conference in Winnipeg here, that’s why we’re in town, in reference to health for the serving community, health for the retired military community. A lot of uniforms walking by, a uniform that you used to wear. What do you feel when that walking by? Do you miss it? Do you wish you were still wearing it?

Shauna

It’s complicated.

Brian

Of course.

Shauna

There’s always that initial tensing, shoulders come up around my ears, like very much, “Shit, I have to behave myself.” Pardon my language. There’s also the somebody’s going to yell at me. That follows very swiftly on that, and then I get to that point where it’s like, “Wait a minute, they can yell at you, but it’s not going to mean anything anymore because you’re no longer in.”

Then my brain goes back to, “Oh, I miss those times. There’s elements of being in the military that I miss.” Certainly, the camaraderie, the experience to be able to go out, do weapons training like drills, and stuff like that. Certainly, one of the things I really do miss is being able to handle a C7. I’ve not handled any sort of weaponry since I left the military, and that is genuinely something I miss.

Brian

I think it took me a long time to be okay with being out. When I got out, I couldn’t wait to get rid of all that crap in my house. It’s like winter this, desert this, just get gone, but then when you start handing in those last bits, like the ID card goes back in and they’re crossing off all your stuff on your list and they’re like, “Yes, you can keep your beret, but everything else is basically going back,” I struggled with that.

It’s not like I didn’t want the spare room in my house, I certainly did, but there were some items handing back in that sucked to let go of. It was like, “Really? I’ve got a knock on the door now to come in here?” Did you go through that or was it like light it on fire, let’s get out of here?

Shauna

No. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that I left the military in a bit of a hurry, partly because there were some things that were going on and I’m not going to get into tons of detail about it, but suffice to say my military career was over at that point. For me, it was more a sense of relief to get everything handed in with the exception, of course, of my boots and my beret that I was like, “No, I earned those. Those are mine, and I will fight somebody for them.”

Laryssa

Shauna, your transition out of the military, like you said, it was quite in a hurry, but you almost faded out of the picture. You have talked before about how some people, after the fact that you reunited with a leader that you served with, asked you like, “Where did you go?” Was that transition difficult for you? Did you feel acknowledged?

Shauna

Not at all. When I left, it was one day I was there and then the next day I wasn’t. Now, at that time, I was also just finishing up my healthcare aid course through Red River. I was starting to work more at the hospital. In terms of the transition, I was able to basically take the focus that I was using in my medical career in the military and focus it on my medical career in civilian life. That there wasn’t so much difficulty with.

The difficulty was, because I’m not a unionized person, I’m not getting the shifts that I need. Whereas with the military, while I was still in, all I’d have to do is, go up the chain of command and basically say, “Hey, look, I need to have some Class A days.” I can’t do that as a civilian medical person. It’s literally, you’d have to be on call and because you are so far down the list, you’re the last person they call. I wasn’t getting the work that I needed. Had I had a little bit more support, things would have been a little bit different.

Brian

Even on the way here today, we had some spare time. We drove by the armory for your home unit, the Minto Armoury.

Shauna

Correct.

Brian

How is that for you? From the outside in, it looks like a castle, but that houses a number of military units, got to go house a number of memories, good and bad for you. Is it generally a positive thing to be reminded of those things and to see them?

Shauna

It depends on the context for which I’m going. The unfortunate fact is that Remembrance Day ceremonies, I have a very difficult time with. Going back, the idea or knowing that I will be running into either people that I served with or people that were effectively part of the problem and not the solution. It was interesting because this summer I had a colleague of mine from Nijmegen University in Holland come into Winnipeg because she is doing some research and she wanted to go and see the Royal Winnipeg Rifles Museum. Shout out folks, Royal Winnipeg Rifles Museum, you got to go see it.

I texted, of course, the museum opener and was able to get in there. I was thinking to myself like, “Oh no, this is going to be awful. I’m not going to want to be there as soon as I step foot in through the doors, I’m going to be like, “No, I want to go,” but it was okay. I wasn’t nearly as anxious. I was like, “Oh, this is making a mountain out of a molehill. I don’t understand why I’m getting so upset about this.” It was because of the fact that there weren’t as many people there and certainly the chances of me running into people that I served with was a lot lower than it would be on something like Remembrance Day.

Brian

Circling back to Indigenous land acknowledgments, what advice could you give someone, much like me, that still feels like almost imposter syndrome standing up there for the opening minute of whatever we’re doing, and still feel like I’m rattling off something I don’t understand?

Shauna

First of all, don’t rattle off something. If they hand you a piece of paper and say, “Here’s the land acknowledgment,” it’s a guideline, not a rule. Certainly, if they hand you a land acknowledgment, you can use it as a template, but add your own understanding, so much like how Laryssa had gone to do some secondary and tertiary research. I encourage you to do that, too. Say if you were doing a land acknowledgment here for Winnipeg.

Brian

We’re about to wrap up, but before we do that, you got some interesting things going on in the world of education. You’re a student, you also teach sometimes. Give us a little bit of background about that, because it does tie into this conversation.

Shauna

It does. I knew when I was finishing up my undergraduate degree that I was going to be going on to do graduate-level work, and my master’s thesis, I wanted to specifically focus on Indigenous Veterans after 1951, because that was when the most recent changes of the Indian Act were changed, basically, to remove a lot of the really oppressive measures that were in place, things like the pass system, things like ceremony bans, things like not being able to basically leave the reserve for whatever reason.

At that point in time, there were still a lot of the residential schools that were in operation. I wanted to see how those things would change, but I also wanted to see how Indigenous Veterans saw themselves. It was interesting that through the course of my research, I found it boiled down to a couple of things, but one of the big takeaways that I took from it was identity. Many Indigenous Veterans come to their identity as an Indigenous person oftentimes very late. Part of that is because of the interruption from colonialism and colonization.

Many who are proudly identifying as First Nation Inuit or Métis do experience a number of things while they’re in the military, whether it is racism or prejudice of some sort, whether it is recognized or not. Their perceptions on what it meant to be a Veteran also varied greatly.

I found that a lot of them were like, “I don’t really consider myself a Veteran.” Certainly, within Anishinaabe communities, Ojibwe communities, what we usually call ourselves is “ogichidaa,” which basically means leader or head person. Within certain other languages, there are terms or terminology language specific to soldiers. I thought it was interesting that the term “ogichidaa” specifically means leader or head person because that’s going back to the powwows, how it’s always the Veterans who are the first to lead in the grand entry.

Brian

That was what we wanted. It’s always good to see you. You’re in the top of my list of when in Winnipeg, call this person.

Shauna

Yes, please. We’ll be posting your cell number in the –

[laughter]

Shauna

Oh, no.

Brian

There will be a lineup of people outside your door next week. It’s always good to talk to you just as friends, but also to get a little bit more insight. I’ve left here already with some new information that I didn’t know about.

Shauna

I will always, always, always say to the both of you, gizaagi’in, which in Anishinaabemowin is the long form of “I love you.” There’s the other meaning to it, too, which is literally the acknowledgment that you complete me or I acknowledge the impact that you have had upon me.

Laryssa

Thank you, Shauna, for being here. I guess I will put a shout-out that if you want to learn a little bit more of Shauna and her journey, you did create a digital story with us, which I think is absolutely beautiful. You are an amazing storyteller. Folks can jump on to the Atlas website. Just thanks for spending time and for always answering my awkward questions. I really appreciate it.

Shauna

Anytime. I love awkward questions.

Brian

That’s another episode of Mind Beyond the Mission.

[music]

Brian

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mind Beyond the Mission.

Laryssa

If this conversation resonated with you or helped you in any way, I encourage you to subscribe to Mind Beyond the Mission wherever you listen to your podcasts, so you’ll be the first to know when our next episode comes out.

Brian

If you know someone who might relate to what we’ve shared or could find it helpful, please feel free to send it their way. We’re all on the same team.

Laryssa

Plus, we’d love to hear what other topics you’d be interested in us exploring in future episodes. Brian and I have a lot of ideas and subjects we plan to dive into, but you, the listener, have probably experienced or thought of topics that haven’t crossed our minds yet.

Brian

Please reach out if this is the case. We’re on social media @atlasveteransca on most platforms. Please feel free to tweet at us, send us a message, or leave a review on this episode, and let us know what else you’d like to hear us talk about.

Laryssa

Brian, it’s always a pleasure having these important conversations with you. Looking forward to next time.

Brian

You bet, Laryssa. Take it easy.