Unarmored Talk

How My Guest Found Meaning and Purpose After Military Service

• Mario P. Fields - Sergeant Major (Ret.) • Episode 137

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In this episode of Unarmored Talk, we explore the profound challenges veterans face during their transition to civilian life, including the identity crises that often accompany it. Marine Corps Veteran Garret Biss shares his powerful story of confronting mental health struggles and highlights the transformative role of authenticity in the healing process.

Key takeaways include:

  • The impact of identity loss after military service
  • Personal insights into anxiety and mental health challenges
  • How authenticity can help veterans rediscover purpose
  • The complex nature of military identity and its dualities

Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbbiss/
TEDx - Unspoken Trauma All Veterans Face 

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Mario P. Fields:

Welcome back to Unarmored Talk Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and watching each episode and continue, please, to share with your friends and family members and colleagues, and don't forget to leave a rating or review if you feel this is an awesome show. And you can connect to all of my social media on the Parade Deck Just look in the show notes. Media on the parade deck just look in the show notes. Or you can put in the search engine Mario P Fields parade deck and get all access to my social media. Well, let's get ready to interview another guest who is willing to remove their armor to help other people.

Mario P. Fields:

Welcome back to the Unarmored Talk podcast. Everyone. Happy new year is 2025, the first episode of this amazing year, as we continue to produce episodes that hopefully helps you think, self-reflect and develop a more accurate way of thinking for yourself by hearing Unarmored discussions to learn not only about the guest, but also to help you learn more about yourself. I'm still your host, Mario P Fields, as we are headed towards our fifth year in production, and I would like to thank all of the guests 100 plus guests who have come on the show, including our amazing guest we have today. His name is Garrett B Biss. He is a United States Marine Corps veteran, did about 17,000, I'm sorry y'all 17 years of active service. Thank you for your service, Garrett. Thank you for protecting our nation's most precious jewel called freedom. How are you doing today, my friend?

Garret Biss:

I'm doing well, sergeant, major, and thank you for your service as well. I'm really excited for this opportunity. It's great that it worked out to be on my I won't say how many years, but on my birthday, so I love this idea of some self-reflection. I'm excited to see what we dig into. But, first and foremost, thanks for having me.

Mario P. Fields:

You know my pleasure, my friend, my pleasure you guys but he's done a lot of things in the private sector that's outside of that military sector and in the Department of Defense, and but the key thing about Garrett is he's a humanitarian at heart, believing in helping veterans, those who have served, and more. We'll get into the introduction, but before we do that, thank you everybody for another year of sharing and downloading on the Unarmored Talk episodes, either on audio or watching the videos on YouTube. They always generate donations, charitable dollars, and this year will be our seventh. When I say seventh year, that's Still Serving Incorporated's seventh year giving back to the schools in Pitt County, north Carolina. So thank you so much.

Mario P. Fields:

And if you want to learn more about our amazing nonprofit when I say our, that's me, the founder, and my wife, nicole, who's been supporting me since we founded it in 2018, just visit wwwstillservinginccom right, wwwstillserervinginccom, right, wwwstillservinginccom and you can learn more about what we have done to the two schools in upcoming a third school that we've adopted since 2018. The admin stuff is done. You guys know how we roll on this show. Let's get to our amazing guest, garrett. Do me a favor, man, tell the listeners and viewers or viewers a little bit about who Garrett is.

Garret Biss:

So I don't know where to jump in, we'll just get into it. So, as you mentioned, I was a Marine for seven well, still a Marine. I served active duty for 17 years and then was offered an early retirement. I didn't know it was a thing when I enlisted, but they offered it to me so I took it and then had to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. So I had some ambitions. I tell people that I had this long list of things that I said I wanted to do while I was in the Marines and I always had that excuse. So if I went to Marine Corps I'd do this, I'd go get into real estate, I'd write some books, I'd do some travel, nonprofit stuff. And then when they offered me that early retirement, I feel like they pulled my card and they're like all right, it's time to follow through.

Garret Biss:

So I did spend some time doing some searching, trying to figure out who I was. At that point I was really well in tune with who Captain Biss at the time was, but honestly, I didn't really know who Garrett Biss was. If you took off that uniform, removed that identity, took me out of that specific role. Who was I? What are the things that made me tick, what are the things that are most true to me? And that's been a journey that continues to unfold.

Garret Biss:

Unfortunately, like a lot of veterans, like too many veterans, when I transitioned out of the military, I entered a really, really dark place as I was trying to figure these things out. I know I shared this with you but, if any of your viewers want to check it out, I recently did a TEDx talk called the Unspoken Trauma that All Veterans Face and, without too many spoiler alerts, the gist of it is the answer to, or the answer I've come to understand as to why so many veterans struggle with that transition from military service. We look at a population of veterans 19 million of them presently in the country, about 9 million in the workforce but a population with 200% greater likelihood of mental health challenges, struggling with addiction, at least 57% greater chance of committing suicide. Unfortunately, that number continues to rise. We look at post 9-11 veterans one in five post 9-11 veterans is going to experience PTSD in their life. So that was me.

Garret Biss:

I had that journey. I had anxiety, I had panic attacks. I got to the kind of. The tipping point for me was when the suicidal ideations weren't surprising me or weren't shocking me anymore and thank goodness, I found a journey to a better place. But all along on that journey, as things were improving and some things were coming together in my own life, I'm also looking back over my shoulder a little bit like what the heck was that? How do I understand what I just went through? And once I got you know sure enough footing, how do I explain what I went through in a way that can help some other veterans understand that journey, so that I can help them avoid some of that pain and suffering that too many veterans experience. Journey, so that I can help them avoid some of that pain and suffering that too many veterans experience.

Mario P. Fields:

Gary, you've done it and I watch your TEDx talk and your TED talk and everyone that will be in the show knows. So I encourage you guys to get the time to watch it. But you mentioned something that I hear often a lot and I also experience it a lot in my other passion as a United States Department of Employment Facilitator for Transitioning Service Members and Families, and that is that identity. You know, if I put a mic in front of a Marine, a soldier, sailors, you know face and I go in their own active duty and I go which identity? I'm a petty officer third class.

Mario P. Fields:

You know, I'm an operations specialist, I'm a captain, I'm a sergeant major. What are you so when you went through that journey, what did you discover about you? When that captain, that United States active duty Marine identity was removed?

Garret Biss:

Just, you know, kind of like awakening from a dream, but awakening into a nightmare, awakening into a place where I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what my role was. There's a lot of times, with that identity that we have, we draw our sense of value, our sense of worth from being in that role and when you remove that, it really leaves you in this new space. Kind of floating around in space is almost what it felt like, trying to figure out. Okay, I know what I was and now I'm this thing called veteran. I still don't really understand what that is at that time, but there's a lot of things that I can no longer say are about me, that I've lost. And now there's a void and I got to figure out what's that new identity look like.

Garret Biss:

One thing that's particularly challenging, and I think this leads to a lot of the interpersonal challenges that veterans face, and I'll speak from the Marine context. But I understand, and I've come to understand, this idea of a dichotomous ego, and by that I mean kind of a two-sided ego. And in the Marine Corps, what I experienced was when I put on that uniform, even from the first days down at Parris Island, or maybe after the crucible, when I got the Eagle Glove and anchor pinned on my chest. What I realized was, with that experience and with this new identity I had, there was a lot of elements of that that lifted me up, that filled me up. That now I was representative of, and this role that I now had, is something that comes with a lot of self-respect, a lot of admiration, a lot of value from the outside, certainly a lot of value and pride that we can have from what we've proven of ourselves. So there's a lot of things from just putting on that uniform that helped lift us up, help, uh, help lift up our confidence, our self-esteem and and our understanding of the value that we have.

Garret Biss:

But at the same time, I also remember I was. I always needed to run faster. I always need to get my boots shinier. There was always somebody that could do another pull-up than I could do or bench press a couple more pounds. Maybe my floor wasn't as shiny as the dudes across the hall from me in the barracks. So there was always this other really hyper-competitive nature to us, which is beautiful because it always helped inspire us to continue to grow.

Garret Biss:

But that was the counterbalance to this weight. We're superhuman in one regard, but we're also, you know, defective and constantly need to refine in this other hand. But there's a beautiful balancing that comes from that. Well, what happens when you take off your uniform for the last time? Which side of that ego, which set of those voices in your head, do you lose when you take off that uniform and you hang it up in the closet? You lose everything that lifted you up, unfortunately, closet, you lose everything that lifted you up. Unfortunately, a lot of those behaviors, of those thought processes, of constantly needing to improve and not being good enough, just as I am, those things still hang around because that's still a part of you. So now we have this out of balance, you know, or this, yeah, this out of balance ego that's going on, or this internal dialogue, or this internal feeling, which I think is a huge barrier or a huge boulder that prevents veterans from kind of leaning into that next life.

Mario P. Fields:

Well said, and I'm listening to you, gary, and I started self-reflecting myself. I had this like I'm invincible. Babe, I can do it, mario, your back is done, don't worry about it. A little Motrin, a little water, it can do it. Mario, your back is done, don't worry about it. A little Motrin, a little water, it'll buff out. And the next day you know I'm in the ER. Right, that's right. And I love how you get that ego globe and anchor. And now you are doing meaningful work. You go home and you feel good. At what point in your post-military journey?

Garret Biss:

did you finally find something that was meaningful to Garrett, where now your identity is, with you doing meaningful work outside of wearing the uniform? Yeah, that's a great question. So it certainly showed up in a lot of different ways, but there's this common theme to everything that has been most meaningful and everything that's brought more joy and fulfillment to my life, without the additional baggage of pain, suffering or sacrifice that comes with it. And that's this theme that I really excuse me really been reflecting on right now especially at this time of year when we're talking about self-reflection and kind of setting a vision for the upcoming year is this theme is all wrapped around authenticity, and I've come to, or I'm still contending with this.

Garret Biss:

I don't know if it's a theory yet or if it's still a hypothesis, but my hypothesis at least, is that all of human experience, any source of pain or suffering that we experience, comes from a divergence between who we are and how we're showing up in the world, and the difference between the two.

Garret Biss:

That's the breeding ground for the lack for the want, for the fear, for the shame, for the self-judgment, for the physiological diseases or the mental health diseases, and the more I reflect on that, that's kind of become my guiding star now is what feels most authentic and right to me and when I can discern that that gives me a clear indicator to move in a certain direction or in a right direction. And what has felt most authentic to me recently is getting crystal clear on this message and finding ways to serve others, to help them avoid some unnecessary or avoidable pain and suffering in their life. And the biggest part of that message that I'm still, you know, still investigating and trying to articulate as best I can is that when we can live more authentically, when we can bring that delta from who we are inherently and authentically and how we're showing up in the world behind the masks that we wear, behind the projections that we have, when we can bring those two together, that's the only true pathway to wellness, whether it's physiological or emotional wellness.

Mario P. Fields:

You know, garrett, I love it. I really applaud you on how you're choosing to do this. You know, garrett, I love it. You know, I really applaud you on how you're choosing to do this. I mean, you know it's a choice, unless you're insane, you know and I'm not laughing because I definitely have been around folks who have been insane and I have almost been insane it is not a fun experience, but I bring this up because you didn't have to choose to continue to explore who am I.

Mario P. Fields:

You know, why do I feel like I'm not doing meaningful work? And then to discover this is meaningful for me is to continue to do things to help other people, to help veterans, to reduce those mental health challenges. We can't get rid of them, but at least we can cope with them. And then, being authentic, you're on a show. You're removing your armor and this is who you are, you know, on the show. Looking back, I want you to think about this one. If you was a consultant and for yourself, you were your own consultant when you were about to get out, and what you have experienced now in post-military, what advice would you give yourself right before you got out years?

Garret Biss:

ago. I would say that as life moves forward, you're going to have a lot of decisions to make, simple decisions, from where you go to a restaurant this evening, if you decide to move, what kind of career field you want to get to, if you want to go back to school. There's going to be millions of decisions. Sometimes you're going to base that or you're going to find an option and that option is going to be something that's going to help fill a void inside of you. Maybe you need external validation, maybe you need to prove yourself, maybe you need more money because of what that's going to provide in the sense of security. Sometimes you're going to have an option that will help reduce that void that's inside of you. If you can determine or decipher the difference between the two and tend towards this direction, that's going to fill this void and help you feel whole, regardless of what's going on around you.

Mario P. Fields:

If you can discern that, then choose those decisions whenever you can garrett, I wish I would have had this episode before I retired in 2018, because, because the emotional decision I made to retire in SoCal cost me like 20K yeah, because I was like I would just do that to fill a void and then, of course, to come back here in Jacksonville. It was more accurate, a more thought through decision. So, thank you, thank you, as I'm on the post side of that. Well, great advice. I know you're going to charge me and invoice me for that, so just put a net 30 on it.

Garret Biss:

Yeah, tell you what you help me find my way in the front of other audiences that can help benefit from this message. We'll call it even.

Mario P. Fields:

Well, and I'm so happy you're doing this on your birthday. Well, you guys know the deal on Armored Talk. You know as soon as the interview starts it's over. But if I had it my way, we would have hour-long episodes because we just have amazing guests and Garrett, I'm not going to be selfish and keep you on the show, but thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for your amazing Unarmored Talk discussion. Any last remarks?

Garret Biss:

you want to give our leave, our listeners and viewers. I I got a request and that's if anybody was. If anybody has a thought that comes to mind or a question after hearing the start of this discussion, let's continue the conversation. I'll be looking in the comments for where the episodes are posted. You can also find me linkedin's most likely the best place to find me. Let's continue this conversation. I'd love to hear your thoughts and your reflections, maybe any lessons that you've learned about this battle with who we are authentically and how we're showing up in the world, and things that you've learned. I'd love to continue that conversation and please check out my TEDx talk. Share it with any veterans that you know. You can find that at unspokentraumavet.

Mario P. Fields:

You guys heard it unspokentraumavet Garrett. Thank you so much, my friend.

Garret Biss:

Again, happy 29th birthday. You look good man. All right, I appreciate it.

Mario P. Fields:

You look good. Well, be safe out there, semper Fi, garrett and everyone. You guys know the deal. In a couple of weeks We'll have another episode coming your way, but until next time, for 2025, I will continue to pray, nicole, and I will continue to pray for you, your families, your friends, and a special prayer for everyone impacted by the natural disasters in Southern California, and we just pray that those fires our first responders and everyone else, and we just pray that they continue to work hard and we minimize loss of life out there for all of our Southern California friends and families. Garrett, be safe. We'll talk to you soon, man. I appreciate you. Take care. Thank you for listening to this most recent episode and remember you can listen and watch all of the previous episodes on my YouTube channel. The best way to connect to me and all of my social media is follow me on the parade deck. That is wwwparade deckcom, or you can click on the link in the show notes. I'll see you guys soon.

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