“I built this to help other vets, and I ended up helping myself.” ROB: (continued) I thought just stepping into the job would be it, but I really had to get into the people. Honestly, since I was in Puerto Rico when Maria hit, I went through a little bit of trauma and recovery. It really became a thing where I built this to help other vets, and I ended up helping myself. In that process, we created a platform that really does help because if you have a group of people all working towards the same goal, who all have a similar shared background in some shared trauma, it just creates an amazing place for you to just say, "Hey, I'm a piece of something that's bigger than me. Now I can pick up and continue to serve and continue to move forward." And that is an incredibly important part of transitioning from the military. I completely underestimated how important that was gonna be when I left. And I couldn't be more thankful for the opportunity that Jon has given me and other vets by helping me build the Clean Water Corps.
ALLIÉ: Having previous exposure to other cultures while serving in the military, veterans must have an incredible advantage in this line of work. Is working with different cultures and communities a skill that is second nature to the veterans in your program?
ROB: Absolutely. When we look at who we bring into the corps and the people that honestly gravitate towards it, quite a few have come from the special operations community, which is nested in being able to integrate work with cultures from all over the world. That is the baseline of army special operations. I need to be able to go to a village and integrate with whoever I need to in that village. I need to work by, with, and through them. So, that's a baseline, but if you look at what the military has been asked to do for the past 20 years, it's not the standard conventional mission. Even as a regular infantry platoon leader, I was managing relationships between tribes in Iraq. So, you just have learned to work in between cultures and navigate that and communicate, and really understand how to just look at it. The way I think the military does a very good job of training is that at the baseline, you're a human being. It doesn't matter where you grow up. It doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter... your tribal affiliation, your religion or anything. We're all human beings... What it really comes down to is veterans have been exposed to different cultures in an amazing amount of circumstances at a very young age. I mean, you'd be amazed when an 18year-old soldier is asked to manage and how professional he's asked to behave in a very complex environment, and you just learn to do it well. And so the skill sets of veterans, especially through the global war on terror, really fits so well with being able to move to any environment on the planet, build a relationship with the people on the ground, and then have an impact that's gonna be lasting. Every time I see it, it makes me happy.
ALLIÉ: To date, the Clean Water Corps has launched 28 programs in 18 countries. The program has had so many wins. Rob, for you personally, what has been your biggest win with CWC?
ROB: Puerto Rico, hurricane Maria, hands down that is the personal win for me with the impact we were able to have. But as I mentioned earlier, the impact it had on me personally... I found myself on my 36th birthday sitting in a hotel with guys I'd met three days earlier, watching cars get blown down the street, watching the world end outside... Just the next three days we spent like, "All right. How do we survive? Let's find a place for you and your family. Let's do this... Let's fly to the Virgin Islands to continue the work. Let's come back. Let's move out to the West."
But in that process and being so embedded in it from the beginning, not just showing up after the event, but actually being there from the beginning, the team that I worked with over there have become a second family to me and my family. They're the most incredible people I've ever known. And then just the ability months later to run into people that
57 AWARENOW / THE LOVE EDITION
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