The B2B team dives into military jargon, exploring terms and concepts they encounter that may perplex civilians. This episode aims to bridge the gap between military and civilian perspectives, and foster understanding through communication. Host Rebecca Allen draws from her experience with the Army, to explain essential terminology and get her co-host Dustin Abrego briefed, ready for duty, and Oscar Mike.

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Website: Lansing Community College Center for Veteran and Family Support

Welcome to B2B, Boots 2 Books, the show where we explore the journeys of veterans and military connected students, as they navigate their paths from service to the classroom and beyond. I'm Dustin Abrego. And I'm Rebecca Allen, your hosts. Each week, we will dive into powerful stories of resilience, determination, and success. Whether you're a veteran yourself, a military family member, or simply inspired by the strength of those who serve, you're in the right place. Let's turn the page and start this incredible journey together.

Hello and welcome back to an episode of B2B. I'm Dustin Abrego.

And I'm Rebecca Allen.

How are you, Rebecca?

I'm good. How are you?

Great. This is, I guess, part two or it doesn't matter the order that you're going to be listening to this in of talking jargon.

Last time, Rebecca really gave me a really good list of stuff. And when I re listened to it, I was like, I actually know what I'm talking about. And I felt very proud about that.

So now we're going to turn it on you. We're going to talk military jargon as a civilian and never having service. And I think closest relation to me was like great grandfather that served.

Right. So I don't. I'm very much out of the loop. So a lot of the experiences and understanding that I have has been for this job.

But I tried to disconnect when I came up with this list and come up with what did I actually not know that I had to learn? And I still do this on a constant basis with you and Andrew of like, hey, I don't know what you're talking about.

And I try to be good about that and not quizzing you and you all are really helpful. But for those that don't know or those that are not service connected or anything like that. So to get started briefing.

I know it sounds really dumb, but like when I had said this and I had heard this, you all were like, no, it's like this. And I was like, I don't understand what the briefing means. In my mind.

I just go, oh, it's like a summary, like a tldr of like what it is, but there's more stuff to it.

Yes. So I do want to preface all of this. I have an army background.

Yes.

So that is where most of my knowledge comes from.

Sure.

I did talk with my husband last night who has a Marine Corps and an army background. And really the only thing he doesn't know is Air Force.

Sure.

And even that Is still kind of like, we've worked in joint staffs and things like that. So we have some idea. So for those who are listening, if I say something and you go, well, that's not how it is in the Navy. I'm Army.

That's, that's how it is. So briefing. So yeah, we talk about briefings a lot in the military and it's essentially, it's a meeting or it's a class.

So I come from the personnel world in the army and I worked on the resiliency side and like family programs when I was a civilian. And we had to give briefings, you had to give classes. Essentially. This is what your benefits are.

These are what resources are available for you as a service member or as a family member. I had to give briefings on the army substance abuse program.

It's literally here are the things that you need to know so you can continue to be the soldier that the army needs you to be.

So briefings are not one on one. It sounds like they're to a group.

Correct?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

What would you call a one on one meeting then?

A meeting.

Okay.

Depends on what. It depends on what you're doing. Like.

Sure, sure, sure.

It could be a meeting, it could be a counseling.

Sure, sure.

And counseling in the, in the military can have positive and negative connotations. You can have a counseling where you are in trouble and some more performance.

Review type aspects is what I'm hearing.

For civilian world stuff. Yeah. You can also have positive counseling. You have to have counselings when you're looking at getting promoted and things like that.

If you're looking at moving into more responsible roles, things like that. So you have, you get counseled for everything. I had a stack of counselings.

You just, it was someone higher than you saying here's the information that you need to know. Sign that we gave you the information.

Gotcha. Okay. Levels of awards.

I know this sounds weird when I say that it's again, being a civilian, the reference points that I have, which are not great is like what you hear on the news.

Right.

So it's probably like top level awards for stuff. Right. And then literal video games. And I know that's probably the worst reference. It's mildly based in reality of things.

But like levels of awards could be. I don't wanna say like you were a part of something versus like you've earned this for your own, like individual, like accommodations.

Is that the correct word?

Yep. So there are, there are individual awards and there are multiple levels there.

And I Think that initial conversation spurred from when we were looking over information from. I think it was actually Bill Krueger's information. So when it comes to individual awards, the absolute top award is the Medal of Honor.

And that is anyone in any branch of service can technically receive the Medal of Honor. There's a lot of criteria that goes into that, but anyone could technically be eligible for that. And then it goes down the line.

There are service Crosses, and those are based on branch. There's the Army Distinguished Service Cross, there's a Navy Cross, Force Cross, and goes down from there.

There's Distinguished Service Medals that are non combat. And then we get into stars, silver stars, bronze stars, things like that. And then every branch has their accommodations.

So the army accommodation, the Army Achievement Medal accommodations, achievements down from there. There's a massive list of them too.

Okay.

Then there are unit awards. So those were individual awards. That is something you specifically did to receive this award. It could be combat related.

It could be non combat related. Then there's unit awards. I had a unit award on my uniform from something that my unit did before I even joined the Army.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it was a meritorious unit award. They did something on a deployment. I couldn't even tell you what it was, but there was a unit award for that.

And so when you're part of that unit, you get to wear the unit award. That's how it goes. And then there are things like expeditionary or campaign awards.

So one that I think most of our listeners would be familiar with is the GWAD Award or the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. So that was something that you received because of the time that you were in service.

So I had GWAT on my uniform because that was just when I happened to be in service. It wasn't because I had any specific deployment. It was just what you had during time frame.

Another one that a lot of people in our generation be familiar with would be like the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal. So that's just before gwat. Again, it's time and service. That one spans a much greater time in service. But it's when you happen to be in uniform.

Okay.

And then beyond that, just training awards. So you could have certain branches have awards for completing training. There's like marksmanship awards, things like that.

Okay.

There's a lot of them.

Yeah, I imagine so. Some terminology that I again hear in the office.

So maybe if you're not interacting with people, there's the concept of like enlisted versus officer and even what that means for one. And then two, the designations That I keep hearing you all say is, like, there's. Because there's levels to that.

Like, oh, E6, E this and that and other things. And like, what does that mean?

Okay, so every branch has their enlisted side and their officer side. So enlisted is the e ranks.

So E1 through E9, officer is the O ranks 01 through 067 is usually what you're going to see the most when it comes to what the differences actually are. Enlisted side, it's going to be based on your occupational specialty. So whatever your job is, enlisted side has a lot more occupational specialties.

Army, it's mos Military Occupational specialty. You are essentially the subject matter expert in that. So I was a 42 Alpha Human Resource Specialist that was. I specialized in human resource stuff.

There are other 42 series, Finance, Mail, things like that. When you get into the officer side, you become a generalist. You're no longer really considered a subject matter expert.

You are now a generalist in that. In the army, we call it the branch, but again, it's your occupational specialty.

There are 42 series that are their human resource officers, and they could cover really anything that has to do with human resources. So you go from being focused on one thing to you kind of have to know all of it when it comes to that particular specialty.

So officers are usually supervision, responsibility, level of info, all the above.

Yeah. So when it comes to officers, they are the command team.

And if you want to move up as an officer, you are taking on command responsibilities, you're taking on a platoon leader responsibility, you're taking on an executive officer responsibility and then a commander responsibility. And it moves up from there. But you. My husband was military police, but he wasn't out there doing the MP stuff day to day.

He was counseling soldiers for doing dumb things or counseling them for doing great things, getting them ready to move on to another unit, things like that. He was doing administrative work a lot. He was doing the command stuff.

And that's one thing that for any of our service members who are still in, who are listening, that are considering officer like, you're moving around a lot. I was in the same unit for six of the seven years I was in. My husband in that time was in.

Four different units because there's less officers or the expectations are different or all the above.

All the above. So there's different expectations, there are different job roles, and you have to follow a certain path when it comes to officer career progression.

Whereas when you're enlisted, you really don't have to follow that path.

It's you know, you can be lower enlisted and doing your job, and then you can be a junior NCO and doing that job while being in charge of other people, and then a senior NCO while still doing that job and being in charge of more people. Whereas an officer, you may not be doing that specific job anymore. You're just in charge of a bunch of people.

And when I work with some students, especially ones that are going to transfer, being an officer, there's usually an education requirement.

Yes.

Or up to a certain extent. Question mark.

Yes. So there is an education requirement. You do have to have a degree.

To be an officer.

To be an officer. Okay. Yes.

What level degree? Sorry, not quizzy.

I believe it's bachelor's. And my husband and I have talked.

About this before, and I'm sure it's branch and I'm sure it's like, also because, like, so. Or do you have to have the degree or if you've had a certain amount of experience or so. Yes.

And the way that it works in the most traditional sense is you have to have the degree.

Yes.

However, you know, we've. We've heard of, of battlefield commissions. That was really common, especially in World War II, where your officer chain of command is gone.

Yeah. It's survivorship bias of who's returning. And like, those people actually know stuff. So we have to promote them because they're here still.

Yes. And so then it becomes what level of experience do you have? And you can go then from enlisted to officer without having that additional degree.

That's atypical, I think.

It's extremely atypical.

Gotcha. All right, so this is another one that, like, I interact with and I think I know more. So when we talk National Guard versus Reserve versus Active.

Yes.

Those are the ways that I've split it. And if it should be split in a different way because people are like, oh, you're this. And it's like, Right. But like, you're not.

What level are you being told where to go all the time? I guess.

Yeah.

It is. In the civilian mindset, it was like, well, how much freedom do I have of doing my own thing and versus being told where I have to be constantly.

Yeah. So. And this, this could be a whole discussion in and of itself. So when it comes to the most basic breakdown of that active duty is this is your 24,7.

This is your day in, day out. You are in uniform, you are the property of the federal government all the time. You are required to live in certain places.

You know, you're stationed somewhere. Depending on what your situation is, you may have to live in barracks.

You could be active though, and be domestically, like in the U.S. correct?

Oh, yeah, yeah. So our bases, the majority of our bases are CONUS, which is the continental U.S. it's. It's in country here. We do have Okona, so you just.

Use an acronym I've never even heard of until this I'm learning right now.

This is great.

I love this. Okay.

We do have Ocona Spaces, which is outside of the continental U.S. so Germany, Japan.

We have hundreds of them.

We have hundreds of them. Yeah. So you can be stationed there. And that's just. That's where you're being told to live. That's where you're being told to work.

That's your day in and day out. And you have that responsibility.

And there are certain things that you are and are not allowed to do because you are a property or the property of whatever branch you happen to be part of for the duration of that time.

Because it's the contract that you signed.

That's the contract that you signed. Yep. And then you get into Guard in reserve, and you are still technically property of that branch, but you also have a civilian side.

So you are not told exactly where you need to live. You're told what unit you are going to be part of and where you need to drill out of.

And if you're activated or put on orders, then yes, you are their property and you have to do what they tell you to do. But when you are not in uniform, you are 98 your own person. You have to maintain your own job, you have to maintain your own housing.

You are responsible for making sure that you are still surviving, essentially. And then the difference between Guard and Reserves can get down even farther than that.

Sure.

When it comes to Guard, it's a state entity. So we have the National Guard Bureau, which is still a federal entity that falls under dod.

But then the states also are in charge of their National Guard, whereas Reserves are still a federal entity. So my husband was part of the Reserves after he got off of active duty, and he was part of one of the few MP units here in the state.

And you can be assigned to a Reserve unit from any state. We have people that fly in from other states all the time.

For Reserves, the training schedule can be a little wonky because they have a different funding line than active duty and Guard do. So we would have service members who just. They wouldn't be drilling for months at a time because the funding line wasn't there.

Guard is a state funding line, so they are usually a little more consistent when it comes to their drilling.

And that leads into the next thing. You said drilling. What does that mean?

So when I signed up for the Guard forever ago, it was one week in a month, two weeks a year. So you go to your unit for one weekend a month and you do your army thing, whatever it is that you need to do.

And then for two weeks out of the year, you have annual training and you go do your army thing for those two weeks. And that was how you made sure that you were able to maintain those skills.

Anyone that has been part of the Guard or even tangentially associated with the Guard in the last 10 years knows that it's not just two weeks and it's not just one week in a month. Drills can span several days. I've had one day drills. I've had five day drills. Annual training is usually about two weeks.

Sometimes it will be extended. That one is less common because annual training is one of those, like, we have to plan it out way in advance.

We have to have the funding line for that as well. But drilling is you putting on the uniform, being property of the military for that amount of time and going and doing whatever your job requires.

For some people, it's going to be making sure that those vehicles that haven't been running in a month are still running.

Sure.

For some of us it's going and making sure that paperwork is still being processed because there are still going to be some service members who are active Guard reserve. Their. Their job is still 247 army, even though they're in the Guard, but they can't do everything.

Right. Yeah.

So you would come back in and you are supplemental. You're assisting them with these things. I need to get done.

Or if you're, if you're gearing up for a deployment or something like that, there could be some additional tasks that you need to do to help get ready for that deployment.

Okay.

Things like that. It can vary depending on what your unit's mission is.

Okay. Gotcha. Because again with what we, we civilians and other people will see on the TV especially is like during natural disaster something. Right.

It's like there's flooding, there's whatever. Like we've talked about before, there was all the ice storms and stuff in Traverse City.

Yeah.

And a bunch of people here in Michigan got deployed for that to help out, facilitate, assist other things where again like the state government in that way and, or you know, it could be in federal government activations with Those things. So, yeah, being able to go even though if so checking those supplies because they don't want to be. Hey, there was like tornadoes recently, right?

Oh, well, like none of these vehicles have gas in them. Like, you can't just be like that. Right. It all has to be checked in. Even if it's not someone's full time job to be doing that constantly.

Yes. Yep.

Kind of different, but similar.

Talking about when we talk benefits and we're talking GI Bill benefits, there's disability for the va. And when I initially would hear disability or you'd see that, you would think of Wounded Warrior project or other things, which is like, you always go to like the worst thing, which is never great, where it's like, oh, disability. This person can't walk, this person X, like can't. Or has to have assistive equipment or other things like that. Right.

But when we talk about that, there's like a rating. And per the va, it's a percentage.

Which sounds goofy because if I'm like, well, I'm this percentage disabled and if I tried to like make into a math formula of like, how can we do this to help people and stuff, I could be like, okay, so what does that mean? If I can just stop rambling through it.

So I used to be a veteran service officer and I had to do the VA math. And I have a full page for anyone that is watching. I have a full page that explains VA math.

The easiest breakdown of that is when it comes to that rating. We take how efficient your body is still functioning, and then we subtract it from there.

That's weird and gross, but it makes sense. Yes.

So we take your disability ratings from highest to lowest, and it's whatever functionality you're at for that particular rating. And then it gets subtracted from there and there's a bunch of math that's involved. So it's essentially like a 50% rating.

And a 50% rating makes you 80% disabled. Yes.

Wait, what?

Yeah.

Okay, I just made a face for anyone listening.

So it is. You start at 100% functional.

Okay.

And then you subtract 50%.

Okay.

Because you are 50% disabled from whatever that particular disability is. And then you apply 50% to the remaining 50%. So it is 50% of 50% and then it's rounded.

Okay.

Yeah.

And when we say percentages, like, people aren't trying to do like dissection stuff in their head. Like, this can be like neurological. This can be like a bunch of other things.

Yes.

It's not just Like a physical ailment within these things.

Yeah.

So the way that the VA does it is they're going to look at you overall, they're going to see, okay, you have this disability, this disability, this disability. And it could be a physical concern.

You could have received a debilitating injury in combat, you could have tinnitus, you could have sleep apnea, it could be a mental health concern, such as ptsd, depression, anything like that.

And this was before you were service connected and now you do have this post service connected, Correct. Okay, I'm just asking.

Yeah.

So there's, there's service connected, which is this is something that is directly related to something that happened to you while you were in the uniform.

Okay.

And then there's non service connected, which is something that may have been pre existing, but they can't prove that it was pre existing.

Or something that happened to you that cannot be directly related to your military service, but might have happened while you were actually still it exacerbated something else like that.

So if you're a guardsman and you get into a car accident and it's not when you're in a drilling status and that causes a long term disability, that's going to be considered non service connected because it happened while you were a guardsman, but it wasn't during a duty status.

And those are different percentages. If it's not service connected, non service.

Connected is usually considered zero percent.

Okay, interesting.

It's not something that is going to be factored into your VA disability rating.

Okay.

Which becomes a whole fight intervention while.

I was driving to it. And then whatever.

If you are on your way to or from a drilling status, then you can usually fight it to be service connected.

But if it is a random Wednesday, two weeks between drill time and you're just on your way to McDonald's and someone t bones you, it's not going to be consistent service connected.

And if someone's 100% disabled, that doesn't mean that they're like bed bound. All these things.

Because I interact with service members that are 100%, but they're still like doing stuff and then going to enter the workforce and other things. So I think 100% means you can't do anything, which is not the case in what these definitions mean.

Yes. And that has been a very common misconception that I've seen over the years is, well, I'm 100% and so therefore I can not XYZ. That's not true.

You are able to still do some of These things.

But there could be certain aspects of parts of your disability that could inhibit you from doing them the same way that you could, you know, you being Dustin. For those who couldn't see me pointing.

Yeah.

So being 100% doesn't mean that it's taking you out of society.

Everything.

Right.

Because there's 100%, there's 100%, and then.

There's 100% permanent in total, which means that there will never be a change there. There could theoretically never be a change to how you function. So I'll give an example. I'm. I'm 30% graded.

I could have some kind of medical intervention, usually surgery, that is going to improve my functionality for this particular disability that I have. And in that case, my rating would go down.

If you are 100%, I have not seen a lot of ratings that are 100% and not P and T. So you can be 100% if you have a cancer diagnosis, sure, VA will automatically bump you up to 100% while you are actively dealing with that diagnosis, but it's not going to be a permanent and total rating, because the thought is that you should hopefully end up in remission, and then they would reduce your rating again.

If you're 100% but not permanent in total, the idea is that you should be able to receive some kind of medical intervention to help with this disability.

Is there anything above permanent in total?

Yes. Okay, so there's permanent in total.

There's like three levels to 100, which is interesting.

Yep. You can never go above 100%, but there is definition. But there is more than 100%. There's permanent in total, which means, you know, this is.

Your disability is never going to improve, essentially. And then there is 100% totally disabled, individually unemployable TDIU, which is.

You are 100% permanent in total, and it is going to affect your ability to maintain gainful employment.

Okay, sure.

And so the VA pays you accordingly.

Sure, sure. So those are not individuals that usually we're interacting with at the school.

Correct.

Because they could be seeking education, which there's. But when we're looking at them training or the workforce and things like that. Okay, yeah, that was a lot to break down. Thank you.

So if someone has questions about their own stuff, about percentages and stuff, who should they be talking to about that?

In general, they should be talking with a veteran service officer, because at the va. At the va or at a county veteran service office or with a veteran service organization, because those individuals are going to be the most up to date in anything that is VA related and how to do that VA math.

Cool. Awesome. Well, we broke down a lot of definitions for you today. We'll probably end up circling back to some of these things.

I didn't even get to some of these items on this list, which is totally great. I think you really, really broke it down for any of us civilians or other people that are trying to understand service connection.

So thanks so much and we'll see you guys next week.

Sounds good. Thanks.

You've been listening to B2B, Boots 2 Books. Thank you for joining us on this journey through the inspiring stories of veterans and military connected students. If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with your community. We'd love to hear from you, so connect with us on social media or take a listen to previous episodes at LCCConnect.com or find us on your favorite streaming platform. Remember, every story is a step forward and together we can build a bridge from Boots 2 Books. Until next time, stay strong and keep moving forward.