S1 EP9: Veteran Leadership with Linh Thai, Jesus Carbajal and Chris Franco

In this podcast we are excited to hear from three members of our local community who all have served in combat with the United States Army. We are lucky to have Linh Thai, City Impact Manger of The Mission Continues. Linh also spent over six years working for US Congressman Adam Smith. He's joined by Jesus Carbajal, Development & Operations Manager at Seattle Foundation, and Chris Franco, Supervisor at King County.

Our guests give an intimate look into their military service and expound on why they joined and what they took away. They also spend time discussing transitioning from active duty into the civilian world and their views on service, love, and sacrifice.

All three shared personal and professional projects towards the end.  

Chris talks about the efforts of King County to dismantle systemic racism in local government. He also talks about the importance of participation and voting, especially as these freedoms and privileges were so hard won by the sacrifices of veterans over the course of our history.

Jesus talks about his political and grassroots organizing in the lead up to the next election and offers an invitation to support other people and their movements.

Linh talks about his work with The Mission Continues - https://missioncontinues.org/ - and how they focus on food insecurity. Locally, they have two projects with communities from the Denny Woo Garden and Rainier Beach. He invites people to come join them for both service and to interact with the veteran community. He is also involved with New Politics Leadership Academy - https://newpoliticsacademy.org - which is a non-partisan org trying to get more veterans and national service alums engaged in running for public office.

Responses for any of these endeavors can be sent to us at f.nam@civic-commons.org. We will happily forward along any notes to our guests. We thank our guests for their service, the sacrifices they and their fellow soldiers made and continue to make, and the work they continue to do.

0:45 - Linh Thai Introduction

2:24 - Jesus introduction

3:33 - Chris introduction

4:28 - Frank introduces check-in question around how did (or didn't) your military service help you as you moved onto your civilian service?

5:10 - Chris talks about his family military history starting with his grandfather and the sense of service instilled in him

6:40 - Pivot to public service work at King County and being drawn to those who care for other people

8:33 - Jesus talks how he saw military service as a no-brainer to get a job, career, and money for college after high school to support his family at the age of 17

10:11 - Idea of service for just his family switched with his deployment into Afghanistan with a helicopter medical evacuation crew

11:51 - The perception of veterans didn't align with him when he came back until he re-approached the veteran community more recently

13:54 - Linh talks about how his grandmother and mother role-modeled sharing with others no matter how hard things were

17:00 - Linh talks about how he felt he had a blood debt to the American soldiers who died during the Vietnam War

22:30 - Linh talks about how difficult it is to transition out of service and how the love for his fellow soldiers meant so much especially in combat

24:42 - Frank talks about his parents and their personal history with the Korean War and how many Koreans in their generation also felt so strongly indebted to the US like Linh does

26:52 - Jesus talks about the challenge of reconciling his service of armed action in Afghanistan and the institution of the military

32:06 - Linh talks about how he joined the military when Vietnam was still the enemy and that paradox as a Vietnamese-American

33:53:00 - Linh talks about how the common experience of combat connects those who have served

36:45 - Chris talks about the thousands of lives and trillions of dollars lost during the engagement in Afghanistan and how politicians need to have a good reason to put soldiers in harm's way.

38:30 - Linh talks about how people have to struggle with any decision any time to send soldiers into battle

39:20 - Linh talks about how civilian leaders have privilege and that's good but important to pause and to think about the sacrifice of those who have lost their lives for freedom

43:11 - Jesus talks about the sacrifices he made on a multi-day hike with his 9-year-old son

44:49 - Jesus says that civilians don't need to know all the gory details of military service but must deeply reflect on the sacrifice of veterans

45:30 - Chris talks about how love is the spirit of service. Love is why you put your life on the line. Caring for others enough to contribute to building a world where kids can grow up in privilege AND appreciate what they have

47:00 - Chris talks about how war breeds war and how can we break the wheel of perpetual armed conflict? If we can prevent this, we would achieve something truly great as a species.

48:35 - Frank talks about working at City Year, an AmeriCorps service organization and the idea of national service in our history

51:03 - Frank ask each person to share what they're working on

51:25 - Chris talks about the efforts of King County to dismantle systemic racism in local government.

53:45 - Chris talks about patriarchy and how we, as men, have internalized these narratives that harms us and others

54:35 - Chris talks about the opportunities we are granted by the sacrifice of others in order to challenge the status quo by greater political participation

56:45 - Frank talks about how policies and government is really about playing defense (safety and equity) but we have to play offense in our internal and inter-personal relationships because we can't legislate things like love

59:24 - Jesus talks about his political and grassroots organizing in the lead up to the next election and offers an invitation to support other people and their movements

1:02:12 - Frank talks about his mom and her constant two questions around food and love

1:03:53 - Linh quotes Lao-Tzu and how leadership feels obsolete in hindsight after the great task has been done together

1:05:25 - Linh talks about The Mission Continues - https://missioncontinues.org/ - and how they focus on food-insecurity at the Denny Woo Garden and in Rainier Beach and invites people to come join them

1:07:15- Linh is also involved with New Politics Leadership Academy - https://newpoliticsacademy.org - which is a non-partisan org trying to get more veterans and national service alums engaged in running for public office.

1:13:43 - Frank closes by talking about how this country takes individual freedom as more important than societal freedom and how changing that is so difficult

Special thanks to Big Phony for providing music for the We Belong Here podcast.