(upbeat music) - Hi everyone.

Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with our miniseries called Honoring Our Vets and we are honored to have Captain Fatima Aguilar, who is a program development specialist at a great organization called Vets4Warriors and Brigade Provost Marshall with the Army National Guard.

Captain, great to have you with us.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

It's great to be here.

- We need a lot more than thank you for your service, but thank you for your service and we'll talk more about that.

Tell everyone what Vets4Warriors is.

The website's up right now.

- Yes, so Vets4Warriors is a veteran peer support network where we have everyone on staff who has served from Vietnam to those still currently serving today like myself, who is with the New Jersey Army National Guard.

And what we do is provide peer-to-peer support.

We are veterans who have walked those same shoes as our callers and our clients who need support.

And we found that a lot of the support that they actually need is from someone that's just done what they've done before.

And they are so much more willing and more open to speak to someone who has put on the uniform and those same boots.

So again, we're just there really to provide support for any service members, veterans, and their families before their situations become a crisis.

- Captain, talk about your experience in the military.

- Yes, so I actually enlisted back right after high school in 2004.

- Why?

- Why?

A lot of different reasons.

So my family migrated from the Philippines back in '98 and something in me felt that I owed something to the US, right?

They gave us so many opportunities that I would've never had presented to myself if I stayed in Philippines.

So my mother immigrated as a nurse and I felt like I needed to give back.

I was just grateful for opportunities.

So I served in the military.

I'll be honest, Steve, I did need a little discipline growing up.

So I figured the military is probably the best approach to kind of take.

And I think it really did a lot for me.

It gave me a sense of purpose.

It allowed me to thank the country that gave my family a lot of opportunities, and it gave me really, a sense of direction and a family that I didn't think that I would gain.

So that's a big reason why I enlisted back then.

- Challenges you faced, not only while in service to our country, but when you came out.

- So a lot, I guess I could start with, so I'm still serving now, but when I transition out of active duty- - I apologize for saying that, you're still serving.

- Yes.

- A big theme is mental health.

And I don't wanna jump ahead here, but to what extent was that an issue for you?

Is it an issue for so many others?

- Yes.

So I think mental health is definitely an issue.

I myself serve because I felt like I was indebted to the US for giving my family an opportunity.

But as a company commander, which I was previously, I found a lot of soldiers put on the uniform because their lives at home wasn't ideal.

That was their escape to get out.

'cause they had different issues at home.

So their escape was to join the military.

They joined the military thinking that their mental health issues are kind of put off to the side 'cause they have the sense of purpose, but they've never actually done the healing that's needed.

So I believe that kind of happened to me.

So I did meet a partner when I was on active duty, 18, 19 years old, who had their own childhood issues and traumas that they never healed either.

So two people came together and it kind of became very chaotic.

Domestic violence, a lot of back and forth and thinking we were just bad people.

But I think I've realized as of we've both gotten older, we weren't bad people.

There was healing that needed to be done before we came together.

And I think those mental health issues kind of transpired when I was in the military.

Uniform was put on, you're away from your family, you're always in a different location, constantly moving.

So I think it kind of brought up old wounds that we never really healed during that time.

- Along those lines, captain, the stigma around mental health, is it, in your view, exacerbated when we're talking about people who have served our country or are serving our country, who are dealing with mental health issues because of the perception of many of us in our minds that you're tougher, you're stronger than the rest of us who have not served.

So therefore, how could you possibly be dealing with mental health issues?

Am I off base on this?

- No, I think you are very accurate, Steve.

So I believe that we are definitely more open to it than it was when I first enlisted in 2005.

So 20 years ago, there was definitely more of stigma, right?

The saying is, suck it up, drive on, drink water, and just get through it, right?

We're gonna get through it, but now I feel like they're more open, they'll definitely have more resources.

There is still a stigma, unfortunately, especially those in leadership positions as sometimes you feel like you can't get help.

And I think that's actually where Vets4Warriors comes in.

The confidentiality peace that we provide, What we tell our callers, especially when they're in that leadership position, the stigma's still there.

I believe that a lot of leadership still feels like there's retaliation, right?

They think you're unstable even though you've been doing your job for 20 plus years, but now you're going through a divorce, a family situation, maybe a death in a family, maybe a death of what we call a battle buddy, right?

Someone who we deployed with and we're allowed to feel those struggles.

And sometimes it feels like we don't.

So when someone does call Vets4Warriors, the confidentiality peace, when we say keep it as confidential as you want, you can give us a fake name, but all we ask is you give the same fake name every time you call.

So we can make sure we're following up the way that we need.

We're providing you the right resources, and you talk to the veteran peer that's gonna help you through your process as you get through it.

- Captain, what has this done for you to be an important part of Vets4Warriors to not just to have served and serving our country actively, but also doing this work.

What has this done for you and for your wellbeing, if you will?

- So I think when I went through active duty and I kind of shared my experience with my ex-husband, the domestic violence, the isolation that I felt, I think my position at Vets4Warriors has allowed me to make purpose of my suffering.

I feel like I didn't suffer for no reason at this point.

I feel like my story to be able to talk to other service members or soldiers who deal with issues at home or their relationships, I can actually give that peer-to-peer support myself.

And I think the problem is when people think they're dealing with, let's say, domestic violence, they think they're the only ones or they're so ashamed that they're unwilling to share with others.

But sharing will allow you to get out of it because now they can see, hey, my commander at some point dealt with this, but she's overcame these obstacles and she's in pretty good situation where she is now.

So I just feel like it's so empowering and that there's a purpose for whatever I dealt with for those that decade that I had domestic violence.

- Which, you know, it's funny, I started out by saying thank you for your service.

It's also thank you for the service you're engaged in right now.

In the less than a minute we have, talk directly to the vets out there right now.

- Yes, so any veterans service members or even family members of veterans who have any concerns, just reach out to another veteran.

We actually found that veterans are eight times more willing to share their story, their struggles with another veteran, regardless of branch.

You know, we have these little challenges, Marine, Army, Navy, right?

Who's better, who's not.

At the end of the day, if someone put those boots on and those uniform on, we can directly speak to you.

We've walked the walk, right?

We talk the talk.

So it's very easy.

And we're available 24 hours, seven days a week.

Doesn't matter what time of day, there's always someone who can reach out to you as well.

So there's always help.

Always.

- Captain Aguilar, thank you so much.

We appreciate everything you and your colleagues are doing every day at Vets4Warriors.

This is part of our honoring, if you will, honoring our veterans.

A lot of work to be done.

Thank you, Captain.

- Yes sir.

Thank you so much.

- You got it.

We'll be right back.

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