The Bridge – Episode 4

We’re trying to create this new world. We live in this world characterized by the D—diagnosis, dysfunction, disorder, disconnection—and we’re trying to create this world characterized by the G, by growth, by the idea that it’s possible to transform pain into purpose and loss into gain. A world where struggle is normalized, and our ability to struggle well is democratized.

Now, as an organization, the people that Boulder Crest focuses on in the base case are who? Right—members of the military and veteran communities, and members of the first responder communities, to include your families.

When I think about this idea of trying to create this bridge and trying to build this world, I think about this military terminology that often gets bandied about, which is the idea of the “tip of the spear.” Right? The tip of the spear. The people who go first, who show up first, who parachute behind enemy lines and are the ones who create the conditions for all the other things to happen after them.

And I look at the members of the warrior community—which is how we would characterize the communities we serve. Warriors are people who insist on serving a cause greater than their own. Protectors, often to their own detriment. People who are never a product of their environment or victim of circumstance.

And I think about these members of this community as the first ones in—as the tip of this spear—as the people, to use another metaphor, who serve on the front lines of our society. And what members of this community have, what you have taught me as a civilian, is that you possess two critical attributes that are required to make this very, very treacherous journey: strength and courage.

Strength and courage—those are what is required. And the reason why it is so important that you are the tip of the spear is because it is you who, in our society, we look up to as the people who possess strength and courage.

There’s this saying: “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” We need people who can help motivate and inspire us to have that similar sense of strength and to find that courage within to navigate these paths. And that’s why we need you to go first—because you are the world-builders. You are the strong among us. You are the wise among us.

I think about the ancient words of Thucydides, an Athenian general and philosopher, who said that we must remember that one man or woman is much the same as another, and that he or she is best who is trained in the severest school.

Of all the people in our society, it is members of your community who were exposed to the events that are on the boundary of our society. You were exposed not only to your own experiences—hardship, stress, struggle, and trauma—you were exposed to that of other peoples. You are invited into people’s worst days and the most difficult things imaginable.

And if you were able to harness the power of your experiences, to learn from them, to grow from them—who better to serve as the leaders of this new world? Who better to look at other members of our community and say, “It is safe here. And not only that—it is not safe there. You cannot stay there. Follow me.”

That is what warriors have always been in our society. The people who are the ones we look to for strength, for resolve, for fortitude, for direction. That is the entire story of the World War II generation—and it must be the story of this generation of warriors.

You are the people who can help others have the courage they need to walk across that bridge, and to continue to figure out how to live that new world—that new life—in the world characterized by the G.

That’s why we need every single one of us. And that’s why we all play a critical role in building this movement, and creating this world, and laying the tracks of this bridge.