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What makes the Warrior to Citizen campaign important for Minnesota
- The reintegration of veterans as citizens is important for all of us, and we all have something to give. Each of us has skills, experience, and personal and professional contacts that we can contribute to the reintegration effort.
As a student athlete at the University of Minnesota, Emily Hennen saw an opportunity to involve other student athletes in raising awareness about the reintegration of veterans – especially among young people. Hennen made a presentation to academic counselors, and they agreed to add the Warrior to Citizen campaign speakers bureau to the options athletes have for fulfilling their volunteer and public outreach responsibilities.
Chris Commers, a Chaska High School teacher and graduate student in public affairs, initiated and helped coordinate a discussion at the Chanhassen American Legion about how to welcome home veterans in Carver County. State legislators, service club representatives, city officials, and county commissioners attended the meeting.
As a 2006-2007 Humphrey Institute Policy Fellow, Minnesota Appellate Judge Renee Worke used her professional expertise and connections to the Warrior to Citizen campaign as a means of engaging the judiciary in systemically participating in statewide soldier reintegration effort. "We are now talking about bail and sentencing alternatives in instances where post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury may have played a role in veterans entering the criminal justice system," says Judge Worke.
- The reintegration process means working with our returning veterans on innovative ways they can contribute to the community.
“Typical activities that soldiers participate in while deployed include building parks; improving physical infrastructure through construction projects, and building and improving water treatments facilities, wells and pipelines; helping establish independent local news resources; supporting schools; providing preventive medicine and hygiene training to local communities and schools; and helping establish or reestablish community civil leadership structures and procedures.
“Minnesota communities need leadership, experience, competence, and the ability to successfully plan, implement, and execute complex projects.
“If a soldier in a foreign land can work within the constraints of war and multinational politics to create a coalition of citizens, leaders, and soldiers in order to build a water treatment plant, just think of what they can accomplish in their own communities here in Minnesota.” - Lt. Col. Tim Kamenar, Minnesota National Guard
Work around the reintegration of veterans is a model for how Minnesotans can move from me to we and work together on other public problems. In the words of civil rights activist Dorothy Cotton, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
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