Why Veterans Miss The Mission And How Faith Restores Purpose

Civilian life can feel like someone ripped the compass out of your hands. We sit down as veterans and believers and get specific about why the transition out of the military can mess with your sense of purpose, especially when separation is involuntary. In uniform, life runs on task, conditions, and standards. You do the work, you meet the standard, and the feedback is clear. Outside that system, the rules get fuzzy fast, and that fog can trigger frustration, numbness, or the urge to escape.

We talk about discipline as more than willpower. The military can enforce structure, but once the process disappears, you find out what you actually built inside. From Genesis and the creation account, we unpack the idea of Divine order: God takes chaos and shapes it with pattern, separation, and purpose. That becomes a practical framework for rebuilding your own routines, standards, and mission without turning your life into a comfort-chasing mess.

We also connect the veteran mindset to Christian discipleship and the Kingdom of God. Authority, responsibility, servant leadership, obedience, and mission make sense to people who have lived it, and we contrast that with how modern church culture can drift toward comfort. We close with a simple but hard truth: the Bible is the blueprint and the Holy Spirit is the compass, and we have to yield if we want real peace.

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Set The Frame

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the WoeFoYo podcast with T Dove and Bones. We're going to be continuing our discussion that we had in our last episode, where we were talking about some of the manifestations of what I term spiritual impotence. It's one of those things that happens when people are not spiritually recreating, where they feel like they're ineffective, where they were once very effective. And we talked about some of the manifestations of that and why it's important to maintain that relationship with Christ. And we titled that episode, Stay Dangerous. And as we were ending that episode, one of the things that Bone shared was how he and his wife were getting ready to have a discussion because they're both veterans. I'm a veteran, although they did a lot more than I did. So we're going to pick it up from there. Woe four.

The Hidden Trauma Of Getting Out

SPEAKER_00 1:16

And the way this relates and what we were talking about, we were talking about separation from the military. And we were both involuntarily separated due to injuries. And I was just listening to her talk, and she was really getting worked up about leaving, about leaving the military. And what I come to understand, and what I've what I've realized over the years and whatnot, um probably everybody, any veteran that was involuntarily separated, uh, that was left before that had left the military before they were ready, uh, probably has endured some type of trauma when they left. Um and the trauma was coming back into civilian life. Um and what we discussed and what kind of where our conversation went was you're a part of this life where everything was a task condition and standard. Um a good job was rewarded either by um award or promotion or or so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Three-day weekend.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Yeah, there's you know, all these things. If you did well, you were rewarded for it. And then you land in civilian life where there is no task conditioning standard. Um just kind of walking through life and you hope that you do things well, and um there's no real reward uh at your job, uh, because uh someone else who um goes out on the weekends with the boss uh and and plays golf with them and and drinks with them um can get further up the ladder at work than you will uh for doing your job better. Um there's that test condition and standard and that reward system is not there. And what I was trying to explain to my wife is that that's the trauma. That's the trauma right there, is that we had a a way of living and a way of of life and a way of working in the military uh that was kind of peaceful. It was it was simple and it was peaceful. You did your job, you did the best of your ability, and you're rewarded. You get out in civilian life and there's no compass. There's no moral compass. There's no uh there's nothing telling you that you're doing your job well. Uh, there's no no one telling you that uh you're succeeding or anything. I said, and if you were separated from the military involuntarily, that hurts.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

It's taken from you.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

It's ripped from you. So if you did your four years and got out, um, or you know, if you ETS'd on your own, you that's probably not as traumatic. Uh you probably gave it some thought before you got out, so on and so forth. But if the folks are involuntarily separated, they gave it no thought. That was totally ripped from them. Um so now you're on the outside, and not only was your uh was those tasks, conditions, and standards, that reward system ripped from you, but that purpose was ripped from you as well. And so now you're not feeling dangerous on the outside. Um for a man, uh anybody that comes out of the combat arms, that can be very, a very, very dangerous place to be. Uh walking around in the civilian sector, um, not feeling dangerous, not feeling part of the mission, not having that purpose. I think that's why a lot of veterans get out and fall into some sort of addiction. Uh so you gotta you gotta you gotta find a way to get out of that. And and I don't I really don't know how to teach people or tell people other than, you know, you gotta find Jesus.

Discipline After Service And Genesis

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Well, one of the things I found out talking about the military is that I joined the military to develop self-discipline. Joining the military did not make me develop self-discipline. Because as soon as I got out, man, I gained about 30 pounds. Right. I wasn't working out like if I was disciplined when I had to be disciplined. When somebody was telling me to be disciplined. But but I can tell you this there's something about, and this is going to seem contrary to grace, it is not contrary to grace. It's just like I said, God has an order to things, is just when you're doing what he's told you to do, uh, there's a grace that will supersede the law. It's a different law. The law of grace in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. But the law of liberty. There's, if you look in the creation account, in the beginning the earth was without form and void. So what is that? That's chaotic. Right. There's no structure, there's no blueprint, there's nothing that makes sense. It's chaos. And God says, let there be light. Well, when there is, and there was light. And the next thing you know, he's separating lights. And the next thing you know, he's developing earth. He's he's you know, there's water, and he's separating the earth from water. So what's he doing? He's creating this divine discipline. He he and and the the one of the things that I have found, and I'm sorry to say that it took me this long to do it. Uh, and if I'm not careful, I can go back to old habits really quick because they're fun. The consequences ain't necessarily fun if you did it for a long, extended period of time. Right. But but but they're fun. But uh I would say this the thing that really helped me develop discipline was understanding, believe it or not, Genesis, uh, that creation account. So when you're undisciplined, your life is it's chaotic, and you're used to having the things task condition standards. And one of the hardest things to do is you know, you might be to a level where you're even designing missions with task conditions, standards. Like you said, when you get out in the world in the civilian world, it's not that. Uh there's other things kicking in, there's other elements at play. But one of the things I finally learned how to do in the last say the last uh seven or eight years was develop my own task conditions and standards for Christopher Warenberg. Yes. And I had to get to the point where pardon my French, but this is this is the way I talk to myself, so I'm not trying to be crude and vulgar. Well, what about this? And what about them other son of bitches don't matter. Right. And when you get when you get that in and put it like this, I was having a Joe moment. 307 pounds, all this stuff, and just you know, things that, and I have bad habits, I was still still able to function, but but some of the writing was on the wall. You know what I mean? And then I started to see God's divine plan, his divine pattern, how he was taking a big hot mess of something, actually a big cold mess of something, and uh he ordered it, he he planned it out, he created one of the most magnificent things ever uh in this earth, and then he created you and me. Uh but when Job's over there having his complaint because his whole life, which was divine favor, turns into ruin and chaos. And he's bellyaching about it. Finally, and then you have friends that are trying to be righteous, but they're just talking smack. Uh they're they're they're talking out their rear ends. Um what it takes is that encounter with God. It gets your friends, get the friends that mean well but don't know what they're talking about, gets them to shut up. But it also helps you to realize that, oh, part of this is on me. Lord, your Lord. You know, and and then guess what? It's it's restored. So I kind of liken it to that, is all the other people encouraging you and not to belittle their encouragement, as well as your detractors. When you realize that, hey, this is what God's calling me to do, everybody tells you you do a great job, um, didn't do it for you. You know, there has to be, and and again, not to be rude, you know, be gracious, don't say it like that. But inside, I'm going, well, hey, that's awesome. Then I go, Lord, I did that for you. I didn't do it for them.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, there's uh there were time, well, there's there's still still are times.

Owning Your Process In Civilian Life

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Um I was letting my wife know as we were kind of talking about this and going through this, because her and I have the very exact same thoughts about the military. Um man, there's there's times where I'd rather be back, I'd rather be back in the jungles of Central America. Um, I'd rather be on a mountaintop in Afghanistan. Um it's easier. Uh it's easier than where I'm working at right now, the job that I'm doing right now. Um I think that's a to me, that's that's probably a very veteran thing to say. Um because that was uh the environment that I was comfortable in. Um that chaos. I was very comfortable in the chaos. Um I I can't say that there's no chaos in my life right now, because that's not true. It's just a different, different kind of chaos. But you're right. You have to um you have to take control of that chaos and structure it and and make it into something uh for yourself, uh, or else you're you're gonna fail. Um when you're in the military, you're a part of a process. They they they pluck you out of civilian life and they insert you into the process. And the process is what um is what uh works its way in you uh and takes care of you. The process uh shreds the weight off of you. The process makes you fit, the process makes you mentally uh mentally tough and morally strong and or mentally strong and morally tough, all those things. It's the process that does that. When you're when you come out of the military and you enter back into civilian life, um well, there's no one in charge of that process anymore. So I so I like what you're saying. You have you are now in charge of the process. You have to you got to take control of it and and create that discipline, or you'll you'll be chaotic.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

I was having a uh this weekend, I was hanging out with a lot of veterans, friend friends of mine, and did way more in the military I ever did. Uh, but uh one guy that I met was his EOD, that was the job I wanted to do. Oh no, we're not gonna let you reclass. Oh well, that's what I wanted to do. And the biggest reason I didn't re-up, uh, but three or four guys that were on the trail, you know, drill sergeants, uh, some guys knew uh was having a good conversation with a Marine pilot, um couple other, couple other Marines, uh some Air Force guys and uh some Navy guys. And um anyway, and talking all this, and and you you start to speak some of the same lingo, had a full bird colonel that's a friend of mine. And uh anyway, talking some of the process, you can see how the military shaped the thought process, uh shaped uh how you solve problems, and it shaped um the standard that you hold yourself to. Because these guys were able to successfully transition to civilian life. However, we were also talking about another brother of ours that man, this dude, 80 second guy, and uh I said, hey man, where's so-and- I ain't gonna say his name. Um where so-and-so haven't seen him. Oh man, go going through some things. Transitions aren't always smooth. But but I was thinking about how I started to think about first joining. Um, had had recently signed up uh for VA benefits, not necessarily medically, but yeah, I love to go to these national parks. I can get into a national park for free.

unknown 15:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Just money ain't gotta spend. So it got me a lifetime pass to the 25 bucks an entrance.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Yeah. Um, so I like to hit the national parks. So it, you know, but but in thinking about that and doing doing all those things, I was saying, man, I was looking at even with the little two and a half years that I did, fulfilled my term, it shaped the way I think. It shaped the way I approach certain situations. Uh, it shaped how I view accomplishment. And like I said, even even that little bit, uh, I'm I'm of the opinion that, and you might not be, but I'm just of the opinion that every able-bodied male, able-minded male, should have to do at least two years uh in in military service. Uh uh, but I there's certain countries that do that. Um, I can tell you that it brought together a lot of cultures and helped me interact with a lot of cultures I'd never been exposed to. Um I think I was better for that too. But but I can tell you this, and when you and I first started talking about the word of God, and we were we were heavy in church. And one of the things that we're like, man, I heard my pastor say this. I said, that ain't kingdom. I said, you you you know what, and we were you you were saying some of the same things. It it we we just started coming up with the same revelation at the same time, which kind of why we grew together.

Why The Military Explains The Kingdom

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Was um the kingdom, when you started differentiating kingdom work from church work, you could put the kingdom in a military frame of reference and it worked really well.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

And then you take kingdom and then try and apply it to the congregational church setting, and and and there's a disconnect there. Oh yeah. But the military in that that way of thinking, it helps you understand the kingdom of God.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

It does. Um you have a a better understanding of authority, responsibility, um, leadership, all these different things, uh, servitude, service, different things. Um one of the things that I enjoyed about leadership in the military was the fact, and and I know I know I've said this before, I love the fact that us NCOs and officers ate last. We we ate last, uh, we got paid last. Privates, Joes were always first when it comes to resources and logistics. We got our water last, we got our MREs last, we got our ammo last. Everything we did, we were last. Um that's a kingdom concept. Apply that in the church, and you'll upset some folks in the buffet line in the fellowship hall, real quick. Um, so yeah, you I think veterans find themselves very comfortable in the kingdom um because they recognize uh they recognize authority and the way uh authority, authority and and and service and servitude go hand in hand, um, and and responsibility as well. So yeah, I I it's easy. It's just really easy. And we also understand um what obedience uh and um and mission. Uh we understand those those concepts that sometimes you just you have to do what you're called to do because you're called to do it. Um we also understand discomfort.

Discomfort Builds Strength Not Comfort

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Um we also learn to take that discomfort and turn it into aggression. Um, and aggression is not necessarily a bad thing.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Uh aggression and hate are not the same thing. Exactly. Aggression as much as as uh effeminate people might try and classify it as such.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Aggression is not always meanness. Uh aggression can also mean uh stick to it, uh just getting after it and getting it done. Uh you know, not taking no for an answer. It means we're gonna push through this. Uh aggression means putting your pain and discomfort aside. Um, but we have we've missed that.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

You proactively engage, yeah. You you proactively engage in short-term discomfort to ensure long-term greater comfort.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yeah, we we've become so comfort-oriented uh in our lifestyles and and everything else. Um imagine if the pews were hard like they used to be instead of nice and padded and had nice comfy seats. But why do we have nice comfy seats? Because our butts were hurting. Well, why were our butts hurting? Because we were sitting in pews too long. Maybe we should have been standing instead. Uh, you know. Um so anyway, we we've made our churches more comfortable. Uh but in well, that came at a price, you know. Uh we may made them more comfortable. Maybe well, we want to be there more. Well, if you're there, if you're there more, you ain't out in the streets then.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

So the the Catholics church, the Catholic church, you know, they have the kneelers. Yeah. Plop them kneelers down. That's right. Well, oh, oh, you're tired of sitting? Neil. There you go. Let us stand. Let us kneel. Let us stand. Well, we're not we're not going to be like the Catholics. Okay. All right. You know. Yeah. All right. I remember um uh Daryl Coulson, you know, he does uh when he's not doing, you know, his pastoral duties and stuff, he got into healthcare, uh, you know, in the management side of things. But before that, he was uh physical therapist. And he was talking about how the least number, you know, we're talking about comfort here. He said not that it doesn't occur, but he said the least the the population that has least occurrence of knee and hip problems are Muslims. They're bending down, kneeling, praying five, you know, on the ground. Five times a day. Now, misguided they might be. There's some things they do. A lot of them just doing the best they know how. Right. But you got to admire the devotion. And guess what? There, there, there's something to be said about having an aspect of your faith that's active rather than just sitting in the pew. Yeah.

Aging, PT Nostalgia, And Real Standards

SPEAKER_00 22:20

My wife and I were we were also talking this morning about uh she made coming. She goes, I I'm pretty sure I could go back in. Uh, you know, I I could pass a PT test. You know, and I'm sitting there going, I just looked at her and going, could you? Really? You know, and I'm thinking of myself, I'm I'm 55. I won't say my wife's age 50, but uh yeah, um, I'm sitting there going, I don't know. It's well, let's think about this. Um, passing the PT test, that ain't nothing. What about all this? I mean, I'm my wife was MP. Um, I was in the infantry. I became an MP later in the combat medic. But I'm sitting there going, I don't know. I know I'm not gonna do 25 mile road marches now with 50 to 60 pounds on my back. And say, because when we get out of the army or out of the military, we forget all the all the bad stuff. We get selected.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

I oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

It's easy for me to forget that my feet felt like bloody stumps at the end of a 25-mile road march because I have horrible arches. Um, so my feet took a beating. Uh I thought I don't know, I don't want to walk, I don't want to road march 25 miles to the fight and then start my my field problem. I said, but PT test, you know, that was the easiest PT that we did. We did a PT test in the infantry at least every three months or each quarter. I said, that was the easiest PT session we did. I said, 'cause you know what we ran every day? Six miles at least. Six minute pace. You know what you had to do in the PT test? Two miles. And for me to for me at my age to to max it, it was like a six-minute pace. You know, five and a half minute pace, six minute pace, something like that. So I do two minutes of push-ups, two minutes of setups. That's the easiest PT. Uh easiest PT sessions were were the APFT, the PT test. So you're you're focusing on the wrong part. Um, you're focusing on the easiest things. Remember what we had to do throughout the day, between the between those things.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Between those things. And that's when you start thinking, uh, maybe maybe I can't do maybe I'm maybe I am past all of that. You know, we did 12-mile road march. Um, let's see. We had to do 12-mile road march once a month, I think, and then a 25 mile or once a quarter is what we did. Um, you know, that was on top of our field problems, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

So yeah, 12 mile wasn't that bad, but if you're doing a 25, I can tell you I'd never done a 25, but doing the 22 that we did or that I did over in uh Yosemite, um, oh yeah, that that that that changes your body.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

And and we're not we're not talking about with comfortable boots on, we're talking army issue, you know, jungle boots or something like that. About the only thing you could do was put a Dr. Scholes insole in them. That's about it. Um, but uh how easy we forget all the hard stuff that uh we complained about and all those things. So now uh we don't necessarily need to go back to all of that, but we can take a lot of the stuff that we learned, you know, we can take what we learned from um and bring that process with us, uh, that discipline, that uh understanding of mission and leadership roles and all that stuff, and apply that to our daily life uh and take control. Um, take control and uh put some order to the chaos, because that's really what we're feeling. We're feeling some of that chaos in our lives and go, man, something this is just out of out of place. It's just going wild.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

But uh you got to. If you don't take control of it, if you don't put order to it, um then you're not gonna have peace.

Divine Order, The Word, And The Compass

SPEAKER_02 26:28

And I the only thing I would add to that, because the it's you 100% describing, you know, kind of my transition, although it was voluntarily. Um one of one of the mistakes that we can make is that in trying to put the order to the chaos, we try and put our order to the chaos. And and I remember old Christopher Bruce uh out of Grand Rapids, he's going, you know, God is a creator. He said, our Father is a creator, Jesus is the word, he's creator. Holy Spirit was there at creation. He said, but if if he made God, or if if God made man in his image, he didn't make us just a creation, he made us a creation that's also a creator. Right. So here's the deal: if if we've been designed by our creator to be creators, and with when things get chaotic, and especially as members of the body of Christ, if we're to bring divine order, then we need to make sure that we're that that we're in relationship and asking the creator, our creator, how to do it. Or else we'll just try and bring our own version of order, which is going to get which is comfort, is not going to produce the results that divine order will produce in our lives. Right, right. And that's why you get in the word, because the the the Holy Spirit's saying, Here, son, here's a blueprint. Let me show you. Let me show you what Jesus said about that situation. Or, oh, yeah, yeah, you're going through this. Well, you know, the funny thing is, my anointing was on this dude over here back in Israel that was going through this exact same same situation. My anointing was on this man over in Egypt who had to face down some some tyrannical things. You know, you can find yourself in some to some degree, you can find yourself in the word. That's what it's designed to do. And not only that, but he's given you, if you're listening, he's given you a blueprint on how to walk this thing out so so that you're achieving divine order, not only in your life, but if you can achieve divine order, I say achieve, but you know, if you if you submit to the point where that divine order is there in your life, then that's the seed. That's the the the kingdom of God is like a seed. That next thing you know, the kingdom of God is manifesting in you. It's it's evident that his kingdom is in you. I don't like the word manifest because it's just too new aging. Yeah, but but the the kingdom of God becomes evident, but now what's going on? Now it's starting to affect things outside of your own sphere of influence. You know, it it it affects where you're at uh on the job, it affects uh people you interact with on the daily, it it affects you know it can affect things all over the world as we're finding out. Just by being obedient to the voice of the Holy Spirit, you never know where the kingdom of God is showing up in somebody else's life. Yeah. And all we know how to do is just, I'm gonna say it's all we know how to do. But if we're going to have that divine order in our lives, then all we all all we can do is be faithful. We know how not to be faithful, it just doesn't work really well.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Look, he gave us a map. That's that's his word. And and he gave us a compass in the Holy Spirit. All we got to do is yield. Uh he's given us the ability to to use the map and follow the compass. Um, all we have to do is yield. Um, and I won't be so naive as to say it's not as easy as what it sounds sometimes, but I will say that most most times than not, we make it way too hard.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Yeah, it it's not easy, but a lot of times it is that.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Yeah, it really is. It really is. If you just get into God's word, uh read it for yourself, uh, listen to the Holy Spirit instead of everyone else's mouth, and even your own thoughts sometimes. Oh man. It'll go, it'll go a lot better for you. I was gonna say it can go a lot easier, but it won't. It'll go a lot better for you. We need to get out of the habit of asking God to remove us from circumstances and asking God to bring us through circumstances. Um, because he he put us here for a reason. Uh, he didn't put us here to take us out, he brought us here to pull us through.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. Lord, please give us comfort.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Not the southern kind either.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Oh, oh God, it's that's horrible.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

No, sometimes you just got you can sometimes you gotta take in the take in the do a map check, see where you're at. Don't be afraid to do it. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Hey everybody, thanks for listening. We hope this challenges you and causes you to grow. You can always check us out at woefoyo.org or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Audible, or even check us out on YouTube. Remember, folks, if you're going to grow, you got a Woe FOYO. Get in the word for yourself.