Photograph courtesy of Eric Greitens
In his new book The Heart and the Fist, Eric Greitens explains what separates those who endure Hell Week of Navy SEALs training from those who quit: “Even in great pain, faced with the test of their lives, they had the ability to step outside of their own pain, put aside their own fear, and ask: How can I help the guy next to me?”
It’s a lesson that stuck with the former Rhodes scholar and humanitarian, even after minor injuries from a roadside bomb in Iraq cut short his military career. “When I saw my fellow veterans returning, what I knew is, the most serious injury is when you lose your sense of purpose,” he says, noting the alarming rate of suicides among post–9/11 veterans.
So in 2007, Greitens launched The Mission Continues, a St. Louis–based nonprofit that gives wounded veterans fellowships to do community service and encourages those beyond the military to serve. From September 11 through Veterans Day, the group is organizing 12,000 volunteers for 300 projects in 40 cities, including St. Louis. (The nonprofit’s also hosting a gala at the Chase Park Plaza on November 5.) “When we create a challenge,” says Greitens, “we send a message that we believe in you—that you have the strength to serve.”
At first blush, it seems like quite a transition to go from humanitarian to soldier. What was the moment you realized, as you write, “without courage compassion falters and without compassion, courage has no direction”?
There were a series of moments that helped me to see that even more deeply. One of those moments was when I was in Bosnia. This was the first time that I had done real international humanitarian work. I was living and working in refugee camps, often with unaccompanied children—children who had lost their parents during the ethnic cleansing or been separated from them during the refugee movement. I remember talking to a guy in one of the shelters who said, “We appreciate everything that the international community has given us—the shelter, the food, the kindergarten where my kids can go to school.” But he also said that if people really cared about us, they’d be willing to protect us. At the time, I didn’t really know how to respond to that. But later, I realized that it was true. Whenever we do love something in our lives, we’re willing to respond not just with compassion and care but we’re willing to stand up and to protect those things that we care about. So the idea for me ultimately became that to be effective in the world it takes both the heart and the fist.
In describing Hell Week of Navy Seals training, you note that you’d grown up in “a modern America that offered its young men few tests.” Where can young men and women find that today?
Today, in modern America, one of the places that people can find those tests is in service to others. One of the greatest ways to both learn about the world and grow yourself is by engaging in sometimes difficult community service. In the book, I write about how the Youth Leadership St. Louis program took me down to one of the homeless shelters here in the city when I was 16 years old. And now when I look back on it, I think, “That wasn’t a big deal.” But at 16, that was something that was pushing me—it was a test, a challenge. I think what we can do for young people here in St. Louis is to create those challenges for them. When we create a challenge, we send a message that we believe in you—that you have the strength to serve. Whether that’s helping to make a community safer or refurbishing a school or building a relationship with a homeless shelter or taking responsibility for tutoring a younger child—all of those acts of service promote inner growth as well as outer impact.
Speaking of challenges, were there times that you thought about quitting during the brutal Navy Seals training?
In the book, I write about when we went to sleep for the first time. We ran into the tents and immediately everyone else around me falls asleep. Because I’d been in medical, they’d wrapped my foot tightly, and I could feel with every beat of my heart the pulse of my blood in my foot. So I got up and took the boot off and tore the bandage off and threw it back down, put the boot back on and thought, “Finally, I’ll be able to sleep.” And still I couldn’t sleep. There was a beam of light coming down on my cot, and after we’d been miserably cold all week, now it’s oppressively hot. I really started to panic and think, “What’s going to happen if I can’t sleep?” And I started to get into self pity. I allowed myself to get trapped in my own fear and engage in that self pity. It was only after I walked out of the tent, over to a faucet, turned it on, and washed some water over head and turned back to the tent, and I just had this moment of being really thankful for a second and also saying to myself, “This test is not about me. It’s about my ability to be of service to the guys asleep in there.” As soon as I took that focus off myself and my pain and fear, I was able to walk into that tent and fall asleep. I think that was the hardest moment for me, and there’s a lesson that when we’re able to step outside of our own self concern and think about what we can do for other people, it actually makes us stronger. It actually helps us to meet the challenges in our lives.
After returning from Iraq, what was it that spurred you to start The Mission Continues?
That insight was really enabled by the humanitarian work. In the refugee camps in Bosnia, it was often the parents and grandparents who had young kids who were doing the best in the camp, and it was because they knew that they had to get up every morning and be strong for their kids. The people who were struggling the most it seemed were often the teenagers who felt like their life had been cut short, and they weren’t asked to serve anyone and felt like there was a lack of sense of purpose in their lives. When I saw my fellow veterans returning, what I knew is, the most serious injury is when you lose your sense of purpose. Someone told me the number of post-9/11 veterans committing suicide each day, and it’s way too high. And that’s because when people lose a sense of purpose, you see all of those other problems like suicide, unemployment, domestic issues, self medication, alcoholism—all of those things come when people lose a sense of purpose and sense of direction.
Has The Mission Continues also caused civilians to change the way they perceive veterans?
Yes! One of the things we do is give fellowships to wounded and disabled veterans so that they can begin to serve again at home. We also bring civilians or non-veteran citizens out to do service projects alongside veterans. When people spend a day doing service together, they’re able to see those veterans in a different light—they see that they are assets and citizen leaders.
Do people ever give you a hard time about being so well-rounded?
[Laughs] That’s one of the wonderful things about having a great family and so many friends here in St. Louis. They definitely keep you humble.
