It occurred to me when I came across the comprehensive review by Borsari et al. (2017) that much of the research guiding existing programs to help veterans, ranging from mental health to acculturation within academic environments, begins with the transition and not before the transition and certainly not before the veteran’s military service. However, they all arrive at the same conclusion, that veterans need help managing and negotiating the change in identity from service member to civilian.
Before beginning a discussion on identity, I should define how I see and understand “identity” in a linguistics framework. Identity is not static. It is something managed and negotiated constantly. An individual can also have many identities which become relevant in different contexts. For example, a sailor at home can be “mom” or “dad” but at work they are “OS2” or “Chief”. Further, individuals have a repertoire of identities that they can perform. The sailor at home does “being mom” when she talks to her partner or child. She does “being Chief” when she corrects her DIVO and tells her sailors what to do. Ochs (1993) describes these as “social identities” and “social acts”. In order to display certain social identities, one performs certain social acts.
Of course, certain social identities are more significant than others and some social identities also intersect and affect each other. When “being Chief” requires the sailor to remain at sea for a 9-month deployment, she can’t do “being mom” for 9 months. These social identities are further complicated when they’re reenforced by institutional structures such as a difference in BAH predicated on the existence of dependents. Thus, “being Chief” for 9 months is compensated with economic advantages.
So what happens when a transition takes away one of these social identities? The short and unhelpful answer is, “it’s complicated”. However, I believe we can chip away at this complexity by investigating the development of certain social identities by looking at first the transition from civilian to sailor. In so doing, perhaps we can investigate how training for a rate or MOS in service leaves our service members at a disadvantage when they choose to separate.
Borsari, B., Yurasek, Mary Beth Miller, Ali M. Yurasek, and James G. Murphy. (2017). Student service members/veterans on campus: Challenges for reintegration. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 87(2), 166–175.
Ochs, Elinor. (1993). Constructing social identity: A language socialization perspective. Research on language and social interaction. 26(3). 287-306.
