Module 2: Working with Active-duty Military & Veterans
Upon completion of module 2, participants will be able to:
Relate the needs of active-duty military and veterans with other GLAM stakeholders. (CO 2)
Discuss best practices for working with active-duty military and veterans. (CO 2)
Discuss active-duty military and veteran trust-building strategies. (CO 2)
Background
Contrary to popular belief, current military personnel are not driven by necessity into service. Instead, today’s veterans are largely a mirror of the demographics of the general population. A recent study by Asoni et al. dispels the conventional wisdom that “less affluent segments of the American society are overrepresented in the U.S. military.” Their study found that contemporary military recruitment focuses on the middle class and that, “among individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds, those with higher cognitive abilities—i.e., those with better career options—are more likely to enlist, in contrast to the existing understanding.” Asoni et al. suggest the shift to a more technologically advanced military following the 1990s coincided with the military’s increasing selectivity to fulfill its need for a smaller, technically capable force. Their discussion also notes, “The American public as well as the U.S. government has been increasing their focus not only on war casualties but also on the fate of veterans who return to civilian life.” [1]
Returning veterans face several challenges, such as struggling to reconnect with their families, dealing with injuries related to their service, and feeling uncertain about how to access their benefits. In light of veterans’ concerns, those who specialize in working with returning veterans suggest to them that they keep an open mind to the needs of their families, which helps veterans rebuild their bonds; remain active in their communities, and reach out to other military veterans who are also going through the process of reintegration.[2]
[1] Asoni, Andrea, et al. "A mercenary army of the poor? Technological change and the demographic composition of the post-9/11 US military." Journal of Strategic Studies (2021): 1-47.
[2] Ainspan, Nathan D. and Walter Penk. When the Warrior Returns: Making the Transition at Home. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012. WorldCat Permalink: www.worldcat.org/oclc/785079515
Understanding Veterans
In order to work with active-duty military or veterans, it is important to understand their experiences. Watch the following videos dispelling some common misconceptions regarding veterans.
Experiences Working with Veterans in the Archives
We asked three of the VFP advisory panel members who work at military-focused archives and repositories to share their personal experiences working with veterans and provide guidance for other archivists. The following videos include responses from:
Beth Ann Koelsch, Associate Professor and Curator of The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans History Project
Kimberly Guise, Assistant Director for Curatorial Services, The National WWII Museum.
Michael Case, United Service Organization
What makes veterans different than other potential donors?
What should archivists and curators know before working with veterans?
Do the veterans know what archives & museums might be interested in?
What are some of your experiences with Veteran Records?
Additional Video Training
The Center for Deployment Psychology developed a training module for civilian mental health providers who want to develop a better understanding of how the military works and who comprises the armed forces. It provides an overview of military culture, including basics about its history, organizational structure, core values, branches of the service, mission, and operations, as well as the differences between the active and reserve components. Participants acquire greater competency in working with Service members by learning military culture and terminology and by discussing how aspects of the military culture impact behaviors and perspectives. The training is available as an eight-part video series on Vimeo. Even though it is directed at mental health professionals, these videos can also greatly prepare archivists to work with veterans.
Partnering with organizations that veterans trust
As you work with veterans, we encourage you to consider their circumstances. Since veterans tend to find an easier time connecting with other veterans, we encourage you to work with veterans’ associations. Their input can help you adapt your project to best serve military personnel. Furthermore, their endorsement can help you build trust among veterans. In addition, we encourage you to remain sensitive to the challenges that veterans experience. You’ll find a list of related resources that expand on the challenges veterans face and what you can do to support them.
Engage with military personnel early in their careers
In our work, we also learned that those veterans who had the most robust collections partly got to that point because, early in their careers, the then-new recruits were advised by senior peers to keep a record. This means that engaging with active-duty military personnel early in their careers is the most likely way to ensure they keep a collection of their personal records throughout their careers. However, you may also work with military personnel who are further along in their careers or are already retired. In those cases, our advice is simple: tell your stakeholders that the first best moment to start documenting their service was when they began, and the second best is today.
Address veterans’ privacy concerns
Our research also helped us realize that veterans are more attuned than the general population to privacy issues. Some veterans served in communications, intelligence, or special operations. Given their background, these veterans are keenly aware that information stored online may be accessed by unauthorized third parties. Firewalls and encryption help, but someone with sufficient skill and resources may go over those barriers and still gain unauthorized access to private information. This is why some veterans, former officers especially, are very selective about the information they host digitally. For instance, storing some pictures online may be fine, but duty logs may not, depending on the contents of the log. Furthermore, some veterans are also cautious of their photographs because the people in them may still be serving, and depending on the nature of those people’s jobs, sharing their information can be dangerous.
While you may find many veterans who have no such concerns, our work suggests that veterans unconcerned about privacy are few. Thus, to better serve this community, we encourage you to ask veterans head-on about their privacy concerns and plan accordingly. Furthermore, many veterans may not feel comfortable bringing their actual records to a workshop, but most are interested in learning strategies to caretake for their records on their own. Therefore, if you are interested in teaching veterans best practices in recordkeeping and preservation, we suggest that you prepare a dummy or sample records for them to practice.
Useful resources
Challenges veterans face. In 2013, the American Library Association (ALA) compiled a list of resources for military families who are interested in saving, documenting, or recording their family’s military experience.
Suggestions to prepare collections for donation. The American Folklife Center, a research center ascribed to the Library of Congress, created the Veterans History Project, which preserves and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from them and better understand the realities of war. In the FAQ, visitors can find guidelines on how to prepare their collections to donate them to the center. Depending on the goals of your project, you may either encourage visitors to donate their collections here or perhaps build a custom guideline on how to get their records ready to donate to an archive or museum collection.
Funding sources. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) launched an initiative called Standing Together, which aims to promote an understanding of the military experience and support returning veterans. Through this initiative, archivists working with veterans can submit grant proposals for consideration.
Military rank charts. The U.S. Department of Defense provides an illustrated guide to military ranks from all service branches, which can ease civilian confusion when working with veterans.
Military family resources. The Uniformed Services University Center for Deployment Psychology offers a website with many different resources for military families, some of which may be useful to archivists working with active duty military.
Books & publications on the challenges veterans face and how to work with this community.
Ainspan, Nathan D. and Walter Penk. When the Warrior Returns: Making the Transition at Home. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012.
Blaisure, Karen. Serving Military Families in the 21st Century. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Cohen, Sarah, “Vets Preserve Memories of War with Their Own Art.” The Big Story (AP), Nov 10, 2012.
Evans Karen.“Serving Those Who Served Us: Resources for Active Duty Soldiers and Veterans.” College and Research Libraries News 73, no. 8 (2012): 470–73, 480.
Hartsell, Mark. “Voice of the Veteran” Library of Congress Information Bulletin 70, nos. 9/10 (2011): 456–57.
Redmond, S.A., S.L. Wilcox, S. Campbell, A. Kim, K. Finney, K. Barr, and A.M, Hassan, “A Brief Introduction to the Military Workplace Culture.” Work 50 (2015): 9-20.