LTC Lisa Jaster (Army, OIF, OEF Veteran)
“I think that the highlight of that (being inducted into the Army Women’s Hall of Fame) will be what I have been able to do since leaving the military and still feeling that sense of service to our community.”
What can you say about Lisa Jaster that hasn’t already been said? At 37 years old she became the third female to earn the coveted Ranger Tab (the average age of a graduate is 23) and this was only after going on hiatus from a booming career at Shell Oil Company as an engineer. Multiple combat deployments, multiple degrees, and multiple lives lived as a wife and mother of three. But what about legacy? What about the heart of the woman looking past the conquests? That’s always been the goal of this work and even that’s been repeated multiple times. It all becomes a massive platitude if we don’t get down to the heart of the individual and define the “why.” Why did she do it? Why did she go after the tab? Why did she choose to compete in a field of humans almost a decade and a half her junior? Getting to the heart of the matter was the goal. This is Lisa’s “why.”
We’d like to thank Team RWB for sponsoring the project. To learn more about Team RWB hit the link.
Can you talk about how you grew up?
Lisa: So, I'm from a small town… Plymouth, Wisconsin and I thought life was awesome there. But I felt like I needed to seek out bigger challenges. Not that I couldn't have done better; I just didn't work hard. As an athlete, I did make an effort in school, and part-time jobs, but nothing seemed like a real challenge to me. I was also dancing with the local ballet school, Sue Darrow’s School of Dance, and it was around seventh grade when the first Gulf War occurred. I remember watching T.V. and looking at our military, realizing that they were actual war heroes, not just characters in movies. Every single one of them was defending our nation and doing something amazing. It hit me that I was watching the news, not a movie. That was the first little spark that made me consider joining.
Then, my paternal grandmother, who was living in Massachusetts, visited Harvard and came across a book sale on the school's lawn. For just 99 cents, she bought me a book called “In the Men's House” by Carol Barkalow. Carol was one of the first women to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1980. My grandma bought this book and sent it to me after the first Gulf War. I read it cover to cover and I was like, “Wow, this sounds hard.” The timing of these two events kind of synced in my mind and I thought, "Okay, that's it, I want to go to West Point."
Interestingly enough, my father was a West Point graduate from the class of 1968. Although I didn't live with him, I lived with my mom in Plymouth, but I had some ties to West Point. So, I decided to start doing some research. Back then, you couldn't just Google it; Google didn't exist. I had to go to the library, and there was very little information on West Point unless it was mentioned in relation to General Patton or other superheroes of World War I or World War II. Nonetheless, I had this perception in my mind that these soldiers, officers, and West Point graduates were superheroes. They were true real-world heroes.
Starting in seventh grade, I began writing letters to my congressman and attending events to learn more about West Point and how to obtain a nomination, which was the hardest part. You had to be physically fit and academically fit, take a physical fitness test, and undergo a medical exam. But most importantly, you needed a congressional or senatorial nomination. Coming from Plymouth, Wisconsin, I didn't know how to achieve that. So, I started in seventh grade. By the time I was in my junior and senior year of high school and interviewing with my congressman, they had packets on me because I would send them my school pictures. They even had my eighth-grade school picture in one of the packets because that was when I started reaching out and expressing my desire to attend the academy. That's what drove me to pursue admission to West Point and follow the officer route. It was the chain of events that unfolded during my middle school period.
“Back then, you couldn’t just Google it; Google didn’t exist. I had to go to the library, and there was very little information on West Point unless it was mentioned in relation to General Patton or other superheroes of World War I or World War II. Nonetheless, I had this perception in my mind that these soldiers, officers, and West Point graduates were superheroes. They were true real-world heroes.”
Was it awesome? Was it invigorating for you to enter that career path and decide to go down that route? I mean, it's a tremendously tough school. Were you invigorated by the idea? Was it exciting for you?
Lisa: As an engineer, being so focused was healthy for me. I had an end state; I had a goal. I worried about what was going to happen after I graduated because I was so singularly focused for so long. Once I got in, I was like, "Oh, now I need to discover new goals and new aspirations." I had reached where I wanted to be. It was invigorating but also scary.
I had this impression in my mind that everyone going to West Point was going to be pristine. They wouldn't talk trash like I did or make the same mistakes I made regularly, sometimes by choice. I just thought everybody was going to be perfect, and that was intimidating. But once I got accepted, I realized that I was going to show up and be the dumpy fat kid who felt dumb around all the genius athletes. You know, when you hold everybody up on such a high pedestal, like Patton, and then you step on the grounds and think, "Wow, everybody here is top 10 of their graduating class, three-letter varsity athletes for four years. Everybody here is amazing." But then I realized that everybody else was a bunch of chuckleheads when they needed to be as well.
That's one of the things that has kept me tied to the military. Even when working with general officers, they still know how to let their hair down in the right way. I remember being at West Point and seeing senior-ranking officers doing keg stands, which sounds completely unprofessional. But it's also that warlike mentality, right? You have to be able to work really, really hard but also bond and work together and let your hair down, which you can't do if you're always uptight and worried about being an extremely successful, high-performing individual.
Right, that makes sense. Did you experience that drive you talked about? Joining the military, you mentioned the reasons behind it. During your time at West Point, did you enjoy it as much as you anticipated?
Lisa: I loved it. I loved it. I even loved getting in trouble (laughs). There's a place at West Point called Flirty Walk, or Flirtation Walk. When my dad was a cadet, it was where cadets would take their girlfriends for some privacy. Well, it still exists, and everybody knows where it is. The intriguing thought crosses my mind: I wonder which general officer I'm saluting now actually took his girlfriend down here? The whole idea is that West Point always emphasizes the history we study was made by our graduates. So, just to think that even those revered heroes in the United States Army got in trouble at that school or failed a class—that they were human too. Walking on that hallowed ground, I realized it was a place where real people existed.
Right, and that's the key… being human. Anyone is capable of it and yet still becoming incredible leaders and persevering through challenges is amazing. You mentioned some inspiring figures like Patton and all that he did. During your time at West Point, were there any examples, maybe multiple examples, of incredibly impressive human beings that you looked up to as your leadership models?
Lisa: One of the people I tried to emulate the most is a fellow West Point woman, a fellow West Point graduate. Although we weren't there together, she was one of my first company commanders when I went into active duty. Now she is a general officer, which is fantastic. When she graduated from West Point, her name was Stephanie Arnold, but now it's Stephanie Ahern. Something she did, and it may seem like a small thing, but it goes back to the repeated message I've mentioned before, is that she demonstrated being human while being amazing. She would have all of her officers, as a company commander, over for breakfast after Officer PT. One day a week, all the enlisted guys had sergeants' time training, and the squad leaders would run PT for the enlisted soldiers, and the officers weren't invited to join. So the officers went off and did PT on their own.
Well, I had never worked for a female leader before. Captain Ahern, now General Ahern, said, “Well, everybody's just gonna do officer PT together, and then you'll come over to my house on base.” She was married to another Captain Ahern, so it was Captain & Captain Ahern. She said, "You'll come over to Captain & Captain Ahern’s house. Everybody will shower there, and I'll make pancakes or whatever it is." Initially, what went through my head was, “Wow, that's such a chick thing to do. Don't be that girl.”
It just seemed that sounds good. Yeah, but no dude would do that in a combat engineer unit. Like, “Come on over to my house, I'll make you pancakes. Come to my house, we'll drink whiskey.” That's probably what my male company commander would have said. So here we are, in a really casual environment, rotating through her on-base housing. Each lieutenant is taking a quick shower, coming out, getting to meet her husband, eating pancakes, and just talking. And from that day forward, we were completely different as an organization, and it trickled down to the soldiers.
There wasn't as much negative competition, but more productive competition between the platoons. There were two vertical platoons. And by the two vertical platoon leaders getting to know each other a little bit better in a non-military scenario—eating pancakes, passing the syrup—it breaks some barriers. “Oh my God, how much butter are you really going to use?” Yeah. Somebody goes from being your coworker to being your buddy that you work with. And it changes the dynamic. It really demonstrated how leadership trickles down. When you saw the soldiers getting tighter, it was because the lieutenants were tighter.
Lisa and her husband, LTC Allan Jaster, who still serves in the USMC Reserves as the Assistant Division Commander for 4th Marine Division.
What was that like? I don't want to interrupt you, but that was obviously a very serious occurrence. It was traumatic for the whole world, at least for all our allies. We've even done podcast projects on some British guys and their experiences with it, as well as an Australian. Their experiences were very, in some ways, even cooler because they joined up for a cause that wasn't really their own. It's pretty special. But when that happened, and you were at Fort Stewart, what was it like for you to hear about it? Where were you?
Lisa: Well, the actual September 11th experience for me started on September 10th. I had just taken over a new platoon. Back then… the terminology has changed, but it was what we called the horizontal platoon, which handled all the horizontal construction. So I was in charge of all the dozers, graders, scrapers, and other big equipment. On September 10th, one of my soldiers had his girlfriend break up with him, and he decided to take a .22 to his temple in her driveway while she was sitting in his car. So here I was, barely knowing the soldier. I wasn’t even sure which soldier it was until I got to the hospital. I feel horrible saying that, but that's how little I knew about the platoon on September 10th.
“On September 10th, one of my soldiers had his girlfriend break up with him, and he decided to take a .22 to his temple in her driveway while she was sitting in his car. So here I was, barely knowing the soldier. I wasn’t even sure which soldier it was until I got to the hospital. I feel horrible saying that, but that’s how little I knew about the platoon on September 10th.”
That's so sad.
Lisa: Yes, he was a great kid. And actually, I say “kid,” but he was a year older than me. So here I am, a young first lieutenant, and I received a phone call on September 10th. “Hey, we don't have a next of kin. We don't have anyone to contact about this guy.” And it's not that we don't have his paperwork. It's just that he hasn't listed anyone as a contact. So I have to show up because I'm his platoon leader. I find myself in the neuro ICU, signing paperwork and working with legal to become his power of attorney. It's amazing because mentally, I couldn't have identified him until I saw the tattoos on his arm. He was a great guy but in a really bad way. It was really hard. And thank God he survived. He did live.
Talk about the intensity of that.
Lisa: You have to laugh and not take things too seriously. That's the joy of the military. That's how we deal with things, right? Inappropriate jokes and all. It's completely crazy. And his story is even better. When we came back from our first deployment, he joined us for bowling. So he met up with us at bowling, and he was partially paralyzed on one side due to the bullet lodged in his brain. But what was awesome is that he started working in the mental health area of the hospital at Fort Stewart, helping other soldiers through depression. He was thankful to God for his life. He had found Jesus and inspiration. He loved the army because they didn't kick him out just because he was partially paralyzed. This guy's life went from zero to hero. He was saving lives every day. It's a really cool, emotional, and horrible story that only the army can give you.
That was September 10th. I probably got to bed around two or three o'clock in the morning and we had PT the next day. So I drove home. I was living in Savannah because that's where all the lieutenants lived but Fort Stewart was a solid 30 minutes away if you didn't drive 70 miles per hour. So I went in for PT the next morning and was running late, thinking the boss wasn’t going to care. Obviously, I've got other things to deal with. I'm running late for our morning meeting, and I pulled in. We didn't have laptops or decent cell phones back then. I had a Nextel push-to-talk device if you remember those. I don't even know if you're old enough to remember that. So, you know, we had pagers, and I had no idea what was going on. It wasn't on the radio. I was listening to Rage Against the Machine with all my windows open, trying to stay awake while driving into Fort Stewart.
And I get in the office just as the second tower is falling, and I'm thinking, “Holy crap!” I just couldn’t believe it. I was thinking, “Okay, I must just be exhausted. I'm having a nightmare. I’m probably still in bed.” And then, because we were the construction group (horizontal construction), I had all the dozers. They're like, “Hey, we're on lockdown. Fort Stewart's on lockdown. Nobody's going home.” There was a major highway going through the center of Fort Stewart, Georgia. So we had to reroute all traffic. Semis used to go through Fort Stewart back in 2001, so we had to get Jersey barriers and Texas barriers.
So we found these all over post wherever we could find these concrete barriers and we blocked off roads. We dug through people's yards, like people who lived right outside of the Fort Stewart containment area, we bermed up because there were all these dirt roads. And so we had to completely close off the base for the first time. We worked… I don't even remember how long we were there. And then the next thing I knew, I got tagged to be a QRF commander. I and 15 soldiers from my platoon and other platoons in the company were put on a 15-minute recall. We rotated every eight hours. And there were three groups of us that would rotate in and out. And we had live ammunition. Just in case somebody came to Fort Stewart and the MPs weren't big enough to handle it. I had one of the QRF teams for Fort Stewart. And that's my September 11th experience. But then, we deployed to Afghanistan soon thereafter. By November, we had a couple of platoons go, and then soon in 2002, the rest of us went over to Afghanistan.
What were your personal feelings at that moment? You talked a little bit about what happened at Fort Stewart, but how did you feel at the moment?
Lisa: There were all these weird emotions. But since I'm hoping most of the people who listen either are military or love the military, they'll understand this statement. It's kind of like when you're in the army and there isn't a war going on. You feel like you're redshirted like you're sitting on the bench. So when all of the “Oh my God, I hate this. I hate this for the nation,” emotions passed, the number one thing that popped into my head was, “Hot damn, I get to go out there, put me in the game.”
I was looking forward to it because that’s what inspired me when I was in seventh grade. These were all the cadences we sang while we were cadets at West Point, talking about choppers and jumping out of airplanes and killing and dying. And, you know, it sounds awful, but I mean, that's what we trained to do. And I thought, “Wow, you know, I actually get to defend my nation. I get to do this for my mom, for my dad, for my brothers and sisters. Like, I get to go.” And I was pretty fired up, which, you know, again, if you don't have a military background, it can sound morbid, but for those who've served, you understand. It's okay.
It was crazy because we couldn't land our airplanes. The airfield had been destroyed, so we couldn't land anything bigger than, I think, some C-17s and C-130s. But we couldn't land a C-5 or anything bigger. And we had dozers, graders, scrapers—huge equipment. So we could only send in one piece of equipment at a time with maybe five soldiers. We had to wait until Kandahar was secure. And even then, there were times when we couldn't land due to ongoing action or fires on the ground. So we would turn around, and I ended up getting stuck in a place called Diego Garcia, which very few people know about. But it's this gorgeous island. Yeah, the Air Force is there, and it's a duty station—a jumping-off point. It's beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And I had packed my swimsuit as I always do, no matter where I'm going or what I'm doing. So I happened to have a bikini in my rucksack. I found myself in the ocean, swimming with sea turtles when I was supposed to be heading to combat. So, yeah, not the normal story.
But when we finally landed in Kandahar, it was wild because we had tried for five straight days to get there, and each time we got turned around and rerouted. So when we finally landed, my mom looked at a picture of me taken when I first landed, and she said, “You look so scared.” I replied, “I don't think I was scared. I think I was just exhausted and pissed.” And we had this weird combination of uniforms because, you know, at the time it was the BDUs that were not right for the desert. So we had a mix of the new desert uniforms that were coming out, the DCUs, and the old first Gulf War chocolate chip uniforms.
Lisa with her mom.
Did everybody make it through?
Lisa: Everybody did make it through. We lost some of our brothers and sisters while we were there, but nobody from my company or my platoon lost their life, and that's a good thing. It was a blessing because we were running convoys regularly and experiencing issues with IEDs and harassment from the locals. Fortunately, my guys just didn't have that luck.
So it's something I emphasize when I talk to veterans who say, “Well, I never or I didn't.” It's not that you didn't see combat; it's that you were fortunate enough that your convoy was safe or you were outside of the wire doing missions without encountering direct conflict. It's not that you weren't willing to put yourself out there. So never undermine the importance of your service just because the person before you or after you got shot. It doesn't mean you weren't taking risks. You raised your right hand, you volunteered, and your service, even if you're not disabled, is just as valuable as everyone else who volunteered to go over there.
“... never undermine the importance of your service just because the person before you or after you got shot. It doesn’t mean you weren’t taking risks. You raised your right hand, you volunteered, and your service, even if you’re not disabled, is just as valuable as everyone else who volunteered to go over there.”
I agree with that, 100%. So you were there for about nine months, right? Yeah, about nine months, and then you came back? Yes, okay. And what was that period of transition like? How long were you back here before you went over to Iraq?
Lisa: Yeah, that was an interesting thing because we were a FORSCOM asset. So we were stationed at Fort Stewart, but we weren't part of Fort Stewart. Our first deployment was in coordination with the end of the 10th Mountain's deployment, and we stayed with the 101st - Task Force Rakkasan. Those guys were great. And then we stayed over there to do the right seat ride and handover with the 82nd Airborne. When we came back, the 3rd ID, the Rock of the Marne from Fort Stewart, was deployed to Iraq. So we went through a reset.
And then, probably six months, give or take, we went over to Iraq. Our equipment had left much earlier. We brought back what we could from Afghanistan, but none of the armored dozers could fly again because they were too heavy. So we ended up leaving a lot of equipment in theater. However, with the equipment we did get back, we tried to clean all the dust out of the cracks and crevices, and we put them on a ship along with some of our personnel. We were supposed to enter Iraq through Turkey. So a lot of my stuff and our people were sitting offshore in Turkey, waiting for the invasion. Then Turkey denied us access, saying we couldn't go through their country to reach Iraq. So we had to reroute through Kuwait.
Because we were doing construction, we built base camps along the way through Iraq. We weren’t “Thunder running.” We weren't in that initial push with 3rd ID. We were following behind building life support areas. Unfortunately, part of being an engineer is you go somewhere where it's crappy, and make it nice. And then you leave and go somewhere else where it's crappy and make it nice. So, we did a lot of that. Looking back, I wish my younger self had given more thought to the situation. We were busy constructing base camps and life support areas, but eventually, we faced an unexpected turn of events. Someone in D.C. realized that we had been deployed for nine months, less than a year ago, and decided to bring us back. Consequently, our time there was cut short, lasting less than six months. I can't recall precisely if it was four or five months during our deployment to Iraq, but it felt relatively brief compared to what we had initially anticipated.
Okay, so how did you feel about that deployment? Did you feel like you got to do everything you wanted to do?
Lisa: So, I had the joy of getting salmonella in Afghanistan and then getting the Norwalk virus (or Norovirus, I forget how it's said), but it's similar to salmonella. I was really, really sick on both deployments, and I kept just thinking, "God, this sucks." Iraq was moderately more difficult mentally for me. I was no longer a platoon leader; I was a company executive officer. So, I didn't have my people like I did in Afghanistan. I didn't have my platoon. But I did have one of my old squad leaders who’d become the ops NCO, and he had a side gig selling stuff online, so his callsign became “eBay.” We also had a Hispanic supply sergeant, and her callsign was “Hot Tamale.” We did all those completely unprofessional, inappropriate military things and got in trouble a lot (laughs).
At one point, my battalion commander was like, "Hey, Lieutenant Peplinski, everyone can hear you on the radio. Maybe don't call the girl with the Hispanic accent 'tamale'? Yeah, on the radio…” I said something back like, “She calls me 'dozer' and that's appropriate.” (laughs) And I swear to God, he said something like this. We walked from inside his tent, where he was giving me my senior rater counseling, to outside the tent. The guys were finally establishing and starting to put up those old GP mediums, which suck to put up if you're not familiar with those things. I mean, they'd been around, I think, since the '70s. We were just getting all the metal to connect while setting up tents for both guys and gals to live in.
As we're talking, the colonel looks at me and says, “You know, the guys will take a bullet for you. They adore you. But you need to manage your reputation better up here. Because we don't know if you're doing the right thing. Your superiors looking down, we see that your guys trust you, but we're not sure if we should trust you.” He said it in the nicest way possible. It was an OER (Officer Evaluation Report), and it was great. It's exactly what he should have said to me.
But just then, one of my old soldiers was swinging around on the metal frame of the tent and doing muscle-up-type things before I even knew what a muscle-up was. This specific soldier was under my watch (laughs). And of course, while I'm talking to the battalion commander, he hollers out to me. This soldier and I had flown together to the jump-off point in Kuwait. I had admitted to him that one of my favorite movies was Big Daddy. And if you're familiar with Big Daddy, when the kid Julian gets taken away from Adam Sandler's character, he starts yelling, “But I wipe my own ass!” So as I'm talking to the battalion commander, I see my soldier flipping around on this pole, and I'm like, “Dude!” I yell at him, and he yells, “But ma’am, I wipe my own ass!” (laughs) And, the colonel just looks at me and says, “See… that’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
So, when you ask me about how I felt on deployment, well, you can talk about sitting in the foxhole, going out on convoys, getting lost in the middle of Iraq, literally shitting your pants because you're sick with a virus or because you've been on a convoy for four hours, and you're lost, and you can't pull over. At one point in time, you hang your booty out the door and hold on to your driver, doesn't matter if he's male or female, or why… you just hold on to them. You're in survival mode. Hopefully, the guys behind you know to swerve (laughs). Or, one of my soldiers shooting at dogs from the outer wall while they’re on guard and me yelling at them to please not kill the local dogs. I have a lot of those kinds of memories.
The transition between Afghanistan and Iraq, two very different places, a lot of people don't understand that unless they've gone. I've never been to Afghanistan but I've heard a lot of stories about it. What was it like, though, in the mental transition inside of coming back from Iraq, and after having been in Afghanistan, so you, you have these, you know, sicknesses pop up during this time? To me, it sounds like there were some things that you didn't get to realize as much as you would have wanted to, and also that you had some things within that space that you enjoyed. The normal Army career, what was it like, the mentally transition, you know, coming back home? Did you feel good about it all? Did you feel good about your career and the time that you spent over there?
Lisa: I felt very good about my transition home. You know, I knew a lot of people dealt with questions on the political side of serving. But I truly believe that whether or not you like our politicians or whether or not you agreed with them, they made the best decisions they could have made given the information they had. So I didn't feel guilty about anything I did, as I supported our nation in doing what they thought was right.
What I will say is that when I came back, it was amazing because all of our fathers and our grandfathers had dealt with Vietnam, so they were very appreciative of our service. Even the people who disagreed politically with our activities in Afghanistan or Iraq still appreciated our service. However, I will say there were two major things when I came back from Afghanistan. It wasn't super stressful, though I do remember making a phone call and saying, “Hey, I need to talk to somebody.” But the transition was good because my unit stayed together. Around 85% of the people I went to Iraq with were the same people I went to Afghanistan with. So it was a tight group, and many of us had gotten promoted, but we still had our same battle buddies.
When I got home from Iraq and realized I was going to be home for a while because I was going on to the Captain's Career Course, I knew I had some time away from active deployable service. I was also going to grad school at that time, so I knew I had a year of stabilization. The first thing I did was get a hotel room for a couple of days, and I ate nothing but Meat Lovers, stuffed crust pizza (that was a new thing back then), drank wine, and ate Chunky Monkey ice cream from Ben and Jerry's. That's all I ate for a couple of days. I'd shower every two hours, just because I could, and that was my transition (laughs).
Coming back to America, it was like, I know what you're talking about with Bangor, Maine. We had the American Legion lining up, and it was mostly Vietnam veterans, which was cool. I guess I had always thought it would be mostly World War II veterans, but they were getting older. Having those Vietnam veterans welcome us back meant a lot because what they went through was essentially hell on earth. Their presence and support were tremendously beautiful.
Lisa: Yeah, but the one thing I have to say is, so you talked about the emotion of it, which is an interesting question that I very rarely get to talk about. And, the way I describe it to somebody who's never been deployed is if you've been at a roller skating rink, you go for the four-hour session, usually. So if you show up at a roller skating rink when the session opens and you stay on roller skates for four hours. At the end of the roller skating session, when you're putting your shoes back on and you start walking those first couple of steps, you know it's the right thing. You know it's normal, but it just feels so odd. And that's the best way that I can describe coming back from a deployment where all your best friends lived in the same tent with you. You showered in the same place, you ate in the same place, you lived in the same place, you were singularly focused, and then all of a sudden your mom wonders why you don't call her every Sunday night, right? And you're back to the “normal” and part of you is thinking, “This is normal, but it doesn't feel right.”
“... And that’s the best way that I can describe coming back from a deployment where all your best friends lived in the same tent with you. You showered in the same place, you ate in the same place, you lived in the same place, you were singularly focused, and then all of a sudden your mom wonders why you don’t call her every Sunday night, right? And you’re back to the ‘normal’ and part of you is thinking, ‘This is normal, but it doesn’t feel right.’”
Your time overseas taught you a lot about leadership, I'm sure — do's and don'ts. But also, I’m sure just learning what it's like to be in the regular Army. Was that so different than what you'd imagined from being at West Point? Was the atmosphere there what you’d imagined?
Lisa: It wasn't different than I imagined, but I never thought I could get so close to other human beings that weren't family. I mean, to this day, I still get pinged. I was on a woman's evening mentorship call, and one of my soldiers — whom I haven't seen his face other than on social media in probably close to 20 years — pops onto this women's thing because he had registered and gotten the link. He's like, “I'm just gonna sit on this. I just want to hear what you have to say, Lieutenant Peplinski.” I'm like, “Well, it's now Lieutenant Colonel Jaster.” (laughs) But it was cool because I didn't realize you could get that close to other human beings that weren't family. So I think that was the biggest difference between what I thought and what happened.
What was the next phase for you?
Lisa: So, I went to the captain's career course in 2004 and met the love of my life 19 years ago, Allan Jaster. He’s a good piece of gear. A 6'9", Marine is usually someone nobody talks trash about. He is a big dude. Total sidebar: When I graduated or when I went to Ranger School, you get passes, right? And so at one point in time when we're getting a pass, Allan is going to come and visit, and all these other Ranger School students, their families have already gotten there. They're in their cars watching me and I was like, “Why aren't you guys leaving? Is something wrong?” They said something to the effect of, “No, we just want to see what kind of dude married you. We would go to war with you. But God, who could be married to you? Conceptually, that's hard to even imagine.” (laughs) That’s what happens when you live in a foxhole with someone.
In 2004, I went to the captain's career course. I got my master's degree, and then I got stationed in South Korea for two years. At the end of my time in South Korea, I was a little heartbroken about where the military was (this was 2007). I didn’t like where the Army was going, and I had some distrust of certain leadership that I’d seen. But I still loved the Army, and I never, ever, ever thought I would get out of the military. But then things were progressing with Allan, and he was still in the Marine Corps at the time. So we were trying to do the best we could, and we got married. However, we couldn’t figure out a way to live together with him being a Marine and me being in the Army, right? So he got out of the Marine Corps and he was like, “I'll follow you. Your career is important to you.”
hat must’ve been rough on him as a Marine.
Lisa: There isn't anybody who's been a Marine where it isn't part of who they are. And that's one of the things I love about the Marines. I'm a little jealous of them because they know how to sell the fighting dragons with a sword idea, right? So, I thought, “Okay, well, I'll just transition and become a Marine.” And they wanted me to go back to the basic course. I was like, “Two combat deployments, two company commands, and I have to go to the basic course if I want to be a Marine? They don't care?” I remember at the time I was like, “I'm too good for that,” which was probably not the right attitude. It was the right decision for me and my husband, though.
Allan was out for a little bit, and then I remember him saying, “You know, it's a little weird for me to be the FRG (Family Readiness Group) Leader for my wife.” So he joined the reserves, and it was perfect for him. He volunteered for deployment, and he was doing awesome stuff. And I was sitting there thinking, “I don't know if I can make this guy follow me on PCS (Permanent Change of Station) for the next 20 years. I don't know if that's the man I married. And I don't know if I want him to be that person.” But I also didn’t want to be a single mother. So we had a lot of conversations, and I said, “Well, if we don't have kids, then I'll stay on active duty. But if you want kids…” — and he's always wanted to have kids — and you'll see him later today, Tim. He is. He's a lot of amazing things. But he is a fantastic dad. I will never say he's anything but an amazing father.
This man needed to have kids. He was built to raise the next generation. So eventually, I'm like, “Okay, I'm a little bitter about the military. I'll just get out, get established, and then join the reserves again.” I ended up getting out and I got a job with Shell Oil Company, Royal Dutch Shell. I was traveling a lot, making good money. Allan was in the Reserves. We had our son. A couple of years later, we were trying to have our second kid, and somebody contacted me via Facebook, a West Point woman graduate. Her name is Val Coffee, she found me on Facebook and was like, "Hey, we have a unit we'd love for you to join." Like, “Okay, you know, I want to be in the reserve anyways. I've been thinking about this for a while. This is just the trigger I needed to get back in.”
I was completely out, but because we had moved, nobody ever told me, I couldn't become a reservist. So I had to start paperwork, and nobody knew how to get me back into the military. I even went to the recruiter at the mall, trying to figure out, “Hey, how do you get me in?” And they were like, “We don't know.” (laughs) So it took another three years. It wasn't until 2012 after I'd had my daughter, that they finally told me, “Okay, we can get you in. This is what you need to do.” I had to go back to MEPS. I had to duck walk with a bunch of 18-year-olds like I had to go through all of that. Redo. It was miserable. And I was a captain, and of course, you know, they're yelling at all these kids that they picked up from the mall, they drove them to MEPs into the heart of downtown Houston. I remember I drove up, and the recruiters were like, “You can't have a personal POV here.” I remember saying, “Stop me. I can just leave and come back tomorrow.” (laughs)
It sounds like a very humbling process.
Lisa: It was a very humbling process. So I finally got back in, and I was an IMA (Individual Mobilization Augmentee). However, I wasn't officially part of what the Army calls an MTOE (Military Table of Organization and Equipment) or a TPU (Troop Program Unit) unit. So, we didn't go to the rifle range once a month, or once or twice a year. We only took our PT test and did our sexual harassment training. That was the only Army stuff we did. I very rarely wore a uniform, and I joined this unit in 2012. This is where I'm going back to the fact that I missed the camaraderie badly during my break in service. At my very first drill, we went rock climbing and then jumped out of airplanes. And I was like, “These are my peeps. This is awesome. I'm home. I have my tribe.”
So, it was a couple of years later in 2014. I had been in this unit for two years. Sergeant Major Robbie Payne sent me an email and he said, “Hey, listen, they're opening Ranger School to women. Here's the ALARACT (All Army Activities) that the Army published. If you're interested, you need to go. You know, Major Jaster, people are talking about you, you need to do this.” And I simply wrote him back, “Sergeant Major, I like room service. Yeah, that's it. I'm not going to Ranger School.” (laughs) Of course, just like my husband, my Sergeant Major knew what was good for me more than I did.
So the two of them talked, and they decided to hit me up with a flanking maneuver (laughs). And so, my husband, while we were sitting down for dinner at this very table that we're talking at, kids at the table, said, “Alright, baby, let's talk about Ranger School.” And he poked and prodded and kind of pushed me, and I said, “I don't think I want to do this. There are younger women out there that are more physically fit, that haven't had hip surgery, that don't have two kids, that don't have a full-time job with Royal Dutch Shell, who don't travel for work.” And he says, “Yeah, but you're made for this.”
I had a quote in the signature block of my email at that time that was Einstein: “A ship is safest at the shore, but that's not what it's built for.” And so he threw that in my face, not very politely. He also said to me, “You know what? If you don't go, and none of those young women graduate, and I'm like, 'Well, why wouldn't they graduate?' and he goes, 'They don't have the bucket of experience.' Like, if you're going to Ranger School just to see if you can do it, that's one thing. But if you're going to Ranger School, and you've had this experience that you and I have already discussed of Afghanistan, of Iraq, of two years in South Korea, some great leadership and some really poor leadership, that bucket of experience is something you can pull from when you want to be a first at what you do.
It's one thing if you're going to be one of many, but if you're going to be one of the first, you not only need that experience and that support while you're executing the school, but you also need it afterward. Because we're sitting here talking in 2023, and I graduated in 2015. The haters are still here. I still get nasty notes, I still get contacted via social media, and have people say horrible things about me. And, you know, you have to have that bucket of strength, that background, that group of support, that soldier that you haven't seen for 20 years that logs into a female-only call just to see your face. If you don't have that, it's really hard to go through and be a first. So my husband talked me into it. I’m thankful.
“... my husband, while we were sitting down for dinner at this very table that we’re talking at, kids at the table, said, ‘Alright, baby, let’s talk about Ranger School.’ And he poked and prodded and kind of pushed me, and I said, ‘I don’t think I want to do this. There are younger women out there that are more physically fit, that haven’t had hip surgery, that don’t have two kids, that don’t have a full-time job with Royal Dutch Shell, who don’t travel for work.’ And he says, ‘Yeah, but you’re made for this.’”
What was the most challenging thing about being a woman in that space? I mean, you didn’t want to be solely defined by your gender, right? That's not just being a man. I believe that's the point of the book you wrote, right? You didn’t want to just take on that “woman” title; you want to take on that role as an individual. But what was the most challenging aspect of that?
Lisa: You know, it all started with the idea that, “Hey, I want to prove that women can do this.” And what happened was, I failed. I failed a lot, and I failed boldly, shall we say? As I went through that experience, I realized that being a female and graduating from Ranger School was nowhere near as important as being a female soldier. Being there, next to some of these guys in foxholes, carrying the 240, and lugging the extra ropes in swamps or mountains, and having deep conversations - that's what mattered.
The average age for these young men who went to Ranger School was 23 years old. The average distance walked in nine weeks, if you went straight through, was 200 miles, with the pack weighing around 75 pounds on average, sometimes lighter, sometimes much heavier. You ate only two meals a day, and the average day lasted 19 and a half hours over those nine weeks. So, just looking at these statistics, the automatic thought process was, “I don't want my mom, my sister, my wife, my daughter going through this,” which is a very natural feeling, especially here in the South, where we want to protect our women and children - a very valid statement.
However, these guys had never seen not only a female who was also sleeping less than three and a half, four hours a night, but also carrying the weight and walking tirelessly. Moreover, I was a 37-year-old mother of two, juggling a full-time desk job. What became important to me while I was there wasn't just graduating; it was showing young soldiers, like the E-4 mechanic from Hawaii, that I could carry my weight. I wanted to demonstrate to him that when he becomes a Sergeant Major, he shouldn’t let his female soldiers slack off, but also not to assume they can't handle the load because there are two sides to that coin.
I've never gotten mad when I hear people say, “Oh, well, I worked with females, and they couldn't pull their weight.” The first thing I asked them is, “Well, what was your team leader or squad leader doing?” Because if they had the chance as a young male soldier to sit back while someone else did the work, they would have taken it. So it's a leadership thing. Secondly, these guys need to know that there are women out there who like hunting, fishing, walking through the woods, and can spot a rattlesnake pretty damn quickly. Women who know that you don't have to be afraid of a water moccasin because they're following you through the swamps - they want your shadow, not to eat you. These are things I was teaching some of my city-folk peers while at Ranger School.
Did you enjoy that process?
Lisa: I did enjoy the process. So, there's a—he's not a lieutenant anymore. But he was a lieutenant when we went to Ranger School in the Mexican army. Every once in a while, he pings me on social media, and he says, “I can always remember your smile,” because I smiled so much at Ranger School, despite having kids. We'd be walking through the mountains, and I'd think, “Oh my God, I want to bring my kids camping here; this will be awesome.” I'd say stuff like that, and these young 23-24-year-olds are like, “What the eff is wrong with you? How can you even think about a beautiful sunrise when we haven't slept in two days?” (laughs)
What would you say to people that say that the standard has been sacrificed by letting a female into the Rangers?
Lisa: Well, you know, it was really hard for me to confront the statement that the standard was sacrificed for women because the five-mile run was still five miles for me. The timer still stopped and started at the same 40 minutes. My 40-minute time hack wasn't any different; they didn't give me five minutes extra in the beginning. My chin-over-bar pull-ups were still chin-over-bar pull-ups, and my push-ups were the same. I had the same packing list as all of my peers. There wasn't a pink ruck for me. For example, when our RIs (Ranger Instructors) were inspecting our packing list before and after every mission, everything was laid out, and it wasn't in pink camo. They couldn't tell which one was the girls' ruck. So there was no way for them to say, “Oh, well, you know, she doesn't need to have an extra pair of boots because she's a girl.” So I don't understand what standards could have changed unless it was the grading standards, which is what people talk about a lot.
Well, the grading standards are the grading standards, and they're always changing because no two mission executions go the same way. It's impossible to say that you and I running the same mission were graded the same, right? It's all human judgment, and yes, it's extremely variable. Now, were the women pushed through it? Well, if I was pushed through, why did it take six months for me to finish a nine-week school? That one's a hard pill to swallow. We've already talked about it, right? I've been in Afghanistan, I've been in Iraq, and I'm a West Point grad. Do you think I can't pass tactics at the same standard as an E-4 who's been in the army for two years? It's kind of mind-blowing when people question the standards.
And then, on the other end of that, the people who are angry at me, Kris, Shaye, or any of the 115 plus women who have graduated from Ranger School, the questions I have for them are: “Did every man who earned his tab from 1950 to today deserve it? Or did some of them slide through? Did everyone who got kicked out deserve to get kicked out? Or did some good soldiers get kicked out of Ranger School for less than stellar reasons?”
Is it my fault if the grading standards were different? If they really were, then it’s the Army that needs to be questioned, not those of us who volunteered and did our best the entire time we were at the school. But, if you ask any one of my peers, they will say that I was held to a higher standard. The reason why they'll say that is because the females were very visible. We weren’t allowed to completely shave our heads, therefore we could be easily spotted at all times. No one else in over 60 years of that institution has dealt with congressmen asking to see the RI grading cards. None of my classmates who graduated with me had to prove their patrols were graded in accordance with the rubric.
They weren't having their records questioned by the newspapers, the media, or Congress. So, I believe if we were held to a lower standard, that would have come out pretty quickly. And not just, “Hey, I know a guy who knows a guy who says he was there.” I've received a lot of messages from complete strangers saying they “have friends” who say we were held to different standards since 2015. But, in eight years, I haven't met a single person who was there that said, "I know you met a lower standard." A lot of students and instructors have left the military since then and not a single person has come forward to proclaim how we “cheated the system.”
So, you mentioned the six-month figure. Why six months to get through a nine-week school?
Lisa: I kept getting recycled for patrols.
I was a field grade officer, right? So I hope that I was being graded at a higher standard. It’s not like Airborne School, where you fell out of a plane five times without getting injured and graduated. That was the same for every Tom, Dick, and Harry. If you were a major about to be a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, a combat engineer, and you were going to Ranger School, you should be held to the world's highest standard because the decisions I was going to make were starting to be no longer at the tactical level; they were starting to be closer to the strategic level. I needed to truly understand every interworking of our Ranger Battalion missions so that I could properly support them in future wars. So if I was held to a higher standard, I was okay with that because I thought that was proper.
So I like to say that it took me that long to pass tactics because I was being held to the highest standard. Maybe that’s just me making myself feel good. But I will say there was a secondary benefit to taking that long to get through Ranger School. Because a lot of people said, “Yeah, we know some women are strong and some women can live in the field.” I was there for six months. Deployments were six months. So if I could deal with that physically at 37 years old, already having had hip surgery and I could stay in the field, carry the rucks, jump out of airplanes, do all the things that my 20 to 23-year-old peers were doing for six straight months, stop telling me that women can't do it. Some women couldn't do it, but some men couldn't do it. Some small men had problems at that school because carrying a 90-pound ruck when you're 140 pounds sucked whether you were male or female. Let's start talking about bigger issues, and I think my being there for six months was a huge benefit in the long run. Not just to me, but to the discussion overall.
What did that accomplishment feel like to come to the other side of that?
Lisa: Graduation day was insane. I thought, ‘Wow, I made it!’ But then, we got in the car and started driving with my husband and two kids back to Houston, Texas. I needed to go grocery shopping, cook dinner, and get Halloween costumes for the kids since it was right around the corner. I went right back to work on either Monday or Tuesday after graduation. I got in the elevator at Shell Oil in Houston, a project manager with a shaved head, and that was it.
It was really interesting because, for probably 48 hours after the fact, I was in various publications like People Magazine and being interviewed by different newspapers. It seemed like everybody cared and wanted to take my picture. However, by Monday, I was just a mom and an employee again. It was back to normal. Since then, it's been rather interesting because I'm just me. I'm just me, and I want to be the best version of a reserve officer that I can be.
What was the motivation for you to write the book? I mean, I think we've discussed some of that, right? You don't want to identify solely as a woman, right? What was the motivation behind writing that book?
Lisa: I took copious notes while I was at Ranger School. I did that to stay awake, and I told myself that I was doing it because someday I was going to write all of my experiences down in a journal for my kids. I missed my daughter learning how to ride a two-wheel bike, my son's birthday, and a lot of other significant events. I missed my husband's birthday; I just wasn't there for a lot of the important stuff. I wanted them to know why I was gone for so long. Being gone for six months felt wrong; if it had been just nine weeks, it would have been different.
So I collected all my notes and the letters I wrote home to my mom, brother, husband, and kids. Then in 2018, I deployed again as a reservist, and it turned out to be a nine-and-a-half-month deployment, almost a year with mobilization. I realized I was putting my family, job, and life on hold for this Army itch I had, and that's when I decided to write the book.
While I was deployed, I made sure to write everything down, which resulted in something like 750 odd pages of detailed information. I think I wrote down every meal, and what I mixed with it, to a level of detail that nobody, not even my kids, would care about… especially my kids (laughs). I didn't do anything with it. You know, I sent it to my son when he turned like 13. “Hey, why don't you take a look at this.” He got partway through it. He was like, “I love you Mom, but I don't care.” (laughs) Yeah, my husband read it, and he said, “This is great. I didn't know half of this stuff.” But I think my husband was the only one who thought it was great. So, until last year I just sat on the book. Then my business partners at Talent War Group kind of nudged me, like, “Hey, you like to tell your story, but you can only tell your story to so many people at a time.” Having a book is a way to get it out there. You need to tell your story.”
I didn't want to make a leadership book. I didn't want it to be preachy. I didn't want it to be anything more than saying, “Hey, Tim, if you've never met a Lisa Jaster type who likes to bow hunt, who likes to go camping, who likes to just be down to earth, or what I call 'down to earth' or 'redneck,' whatever someone else may call it. If you haven't met someone like Lisa Jaster, I want you to read this book. It's a really quick read, less than 250 pages, and the audiobook is six and a half hours long. I read it myself. I just want you to get to know someone like me. So that in the future, when you're looking to your left and your right, you don't automatically assume that a woman needs to be taken care of. I also want you to understand that I like when my husband opens the door for me. I also like when I pull into the garage, and he hands me my bow because there are turkeys on the woodpile. I want both of those things.
If you've never met somebody like Kristen Griest, or Shaye Haver, it's hard to believe that women can be successful in combat. But the minute you peel back the curtain and get to know ladies like them, ladies like me, you'll understand we just want to serve the country in the best capacity that we possibly can. And part of that is to get the best leadership training that the U.S. Army has to offer. So let me go to Ranger School so I can be better at my job. That's what the book is about.
So when I started with this, you know, 750-page book that nobody's ever going to want to read, I wanted to include those people nearest and dearest to my heart. I finally started working with an editor and said, “You know, nobody's gonna read this. Like, it's not the tale of two cities. It's not that interesting. It's just six months of my life. What do I do?” I had to sit down and ask, “What's the point of the book?” I've had a couple of publishers that were willing to sponsor the book, and some of them said, “Well, we need to do a women's empowerment book.” To me, this isn't about women's empowerment. Women are already empowered. Women who want to do things like go to Ranger School are already confident and strong. They don't need a book to tell them they’re confident and strong. This is for the other side of the coin, the group of people that says women can't do this, or the women who are like, “Hey, I can't do this.” I want them to know that I'm nothing special. I just worked really hard at doing something that nobody should do at 37 (laughs).
“If you’ve never met somebody like Kristen Griest, or Shaye Haver, it’s hard to believe that women can be successful in combat. But the minute you peel back the curtain and get to know ladies like them, ladies like me, you’ll understand we just want to serve the country in the best capacity that we possibly can. And part of that is to get the best leadership training that the U.S. Army has to offer. So let me go to Ranger School so I can be better at my job. That’s what the book is about.”
You wanted this book to motivate?
Lisa: Yes, yes, both sides of that coin, the men and the women. And so when I worked with the editor, and I finally figured out who my audience was and what my goal was for the book, I put a sticky note on my desk and had to start editing and cutting—cutting 65% of the book away. That became hard because you want it to stay real, not just a collection of dramatic stories that would make it feel like Hollywood. I didn't do anything amazing; every person who's gone to Ranger School has those exact same stories. So, I struggled to make it interesting without making it sound like I'm some sort of hero because I'm not, and that was really hard.
So when I did my pre-reviews and sent it out to somebody, I chose a male classmate who had been with me at Ranger School for almost the entire six months and said, “Read this.” He read the stories, and he knew which one was him and what activities he had done that made my life a little harder at times. He wrote back, “Oh, my God, this was so real. I'm so sorry, I did this. I felt so bad about this.” He even ended up going on Amazon and writing, “I am also Class 10 - 15 with Lisa, and this is true.”
So when you asked if it was hard to put it out there, I'm circling back around to say the hardest part was making sure the stories that stayed in the book actually resembled what we went through, and not some Hollywood version or glorified portrayal of Ranger School. I've had four of my classmates read it, and one of them said, “Hey, I didn't realize I was such an asshole.” Another person said, “I didn't realize I was so uptight.” It was interesting to see their reactions, as they recognized aspects of themselves in the stories. But all in all, they contacted me back and said, “Yes, this is actually what happened.” So I don't feel like it was misrepresenting my part in females graduating from Ranger School.
You were the first of your kind in many ways. And by that, I mean an officer and reservist making it through Ranger School – that has to be exciting. You know, in this space, there are obviously female officer reservists, but that's huge. You stepped into that space and were able to accomplish something that you probably hadn't dreamed about before. Now, on the other side of that, you're a mother, obviously, and you get to do that. What's it like being a mom? Well, I mean, you can't answer this one wrong, right? Be careful with your words (laughs).
Lisa: I never wanted to be a mom. There are some girls that dream about getting married and having kids. I knew I wanted to be a soldier. I knew that. But I never knew I wanted to be a wife or a mother. And, I am not a good baby mama. Like when I had my kids, both of them, I went back to work at six weeks when daycare would accept them. I was like, okay, these things are awesome. Yes, I love them. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, take them, please. But now that I have an 11, and a 14 year old, like if I could take maternity leave right now, or postpartum leave, or whatever they call it, I would, I would take whatever time corporate America would give me so I could stay home with my kids now, so being a mom at Ranger School was a complete treat.
And here's why some of those young guys would come to me. Some guy showed me an ultrasound he had laminated in his pocket. I am certain that had I not been at Ranger School, or I had not been a mother there is no way he would share that with anyone. You know, he got a letter while he was away at Ranger School from his wife saying, “Hey, we're pregnant. Here's an ultrasound. And who was he going to share that with if it wasn't for me.” There we were, in a foxhole talking about the different types of 320 rounds. And then we talked about ultrasounds. Being a mom was a blessing there for that reason, but also understanding that there are barriers that need to be broken. But more important to me than any barriers was that I want my kids to know that everyone can do anything they want, if they really push for it, and all men are not created equal. Like I hate that statement. We talk about equality and equity, and DEI and all these great things. Well, if all men were created equal, all you dudes would be like Tom Brady, and all of us, females would be like Giselle, you know, tall, gorgeous, popular, rich. We're not all created equal.
We're all created different with equal opportunities. I wanted my kids to see that. And the only way to see that up close and personal was for mom to do it and not back down. And so they were part of my strength. And they were also part of the reason why I didn't want to be gone from them. So being a mom at Ranger School was very interesting. And the other benefit to being a mom while I was there is I realized a lot about men, not just my man, but men in general.
My husband figured out what to do when it came to cooking dinner and being the only parent there, but being a single parent is freaking hard. And so while I was gone he removed our coffee table from our living room and got a wrestling mat. When the kids were home while he was cooking dinner, they practiced their wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu in the living room. That's his way of parenting. He has a closeness with our daughter that developed while I was at that school. There's a relationship there that would not have existed the way it does had I not disappeared or been completely unavailable to communicate with them at all for six months.
You’re proudly wearing the Team RWB shirt which this already sponsored by them (laughs). One significant aspect of your life is Jiu-Jitsu. There's something about being on the mats that truly captivates me. It goes beyond just physical exercise or competition, doesn’t it?
Lisa: To answer your question, yes, I think everybody should get on the mats. There are a couple of things I believe everyone should do. Firstly, you should learn how to swim and do some gymnastics to gain body control. Secondly, try playing a ball sport, and experience getting punched in the face at least once, just so you know how you'll react. And you should learn how to do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I say Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu specifically because young men tend to be more familiar with it due to cultural norms, but the truth is, most fights end up on the ground, right? The body control and strength required for Jiu-Jitsu are phenomenal, and it teaches you how to handle yourself in those situations. God forbid you ever have to get into a fight in the real world, but it's good to know how to do it, handle it, and react.
Now, to your original question about why I love Jui Jitsu: I love it because I suck at it. I'm terrible at Jui-Jitsu, even though I'm now a brown belt. Every day, I feel like I'm getting a little bit worse, but then there's a beacon of light, and I'm like, "Oh my god, did you see that? I just swept that dude!" It's really exciting, but it's a challenge every day. Someone is always better than you, and even a beginner can catch you when you're advanced, either because you make a mistake or you try something new. It's a deeply personal journey. It's like the Army in the sense that you break all of those uncomfortable barriers. In the Army, you can tell an off-color joke, and everybody laughs - and I'm not talking about being racist or sexist, but being overly comfortable talking about death or some of those other barriers that we've already spoken about.
There is a lot of joking on the mats, but there is a special camaraderie. It’s fraternal and it really is part of the sport, isn’t it? If it wasn't there, it would kind of feel weird, right?
Lisa: So one of my favorite examples is my husband and I started Jiu-Jitsu together and the truth was, our son was doing it and our daughter would later start doing it as well. We wanted to be on the sidelines saying something more than, “Sweep the leg…” because we had watched Karate Kid too many times (laughs). We wanted to be able to actively participate in our son's activities. Like when my kids pole vault, I’ve learned the difference between a four-step, six-step, eight-step, and twelve-step. I've learned these things, because I want to be a proper sideline parent, not just say, “Run faster! Jump higher!” So that's why we started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. My husband started first. And then when I was done breastfeeding, I waited until I was done breastfeeding to start Jiu-Jitsu. For the sake of my partners, I figured that would be a little too offensive. But there was one day when Professor Ulpiano, my coach in Houston, Gracie Barra, Westchase, stopped us in the middle of doing a drill. And my husband was laying on some random person. And I had some random dude laying across me, and I'm laying next to my husband who's laying on someone else.
And we just stayed there while Professor Ulpiano explained the movement with another human laying on me. And it was completely normal. There was nothing weird about it. And afterward, in the locker room, everybody was joking about Allan having to deal with his wife rolling with another guy. But it wasn't an issue because it's this group of people who get it. We even shake hands differently. It's like being in the military, where we've broken those boundaries. “Yes, I've had your sweat drop on my face. I've tried to kill you 100 times. But I'm trying to make you a better version of yourself. And you're trying to make me a better version of myself. If I see you in the grocery store, I've got a friend that I do jits with.”
It's the same sense of community that I came into with Team RWB. You know, that’s something I never knew I needed until I went to Afghanistan and Iraq. That sense of community, those people that you can let your guard down with where that can be your Fight Club, and not just single-serving friends. I don't want any single-serving friends and my Army friends and my Jiu-Jitsu friends are not that way. They're okay with Lisa the nerd who goes to a distillery and instead of drinking excellent whiskey, takes a tour and tries to find out what pressure the vessels are at because I think it's amazing to know about a pressurized copper vessel. My Jiu-Jitsu friends accept that about me. But that's the way I found community, in between those two periods – before I got back in the military as a part-timer and after I got back in as a reservist – through Team RWB. It's a group of like-minded people, similar to my Jiu-Jitsu friends.
“It’s the same sense of community that I came into with Team RWB. You know, that’s something I never knew I needed until I went to Afghanistan and Iraq. That sense of community, those people that you can let your guard down with where that can be your Fight Club, and not just single-serving friends. I don’t want any single-serving friends and my Army friends and my Jiu-Jitsu friends are not that way. ”
Adversity is so huge, like there’s healing in that. There's a healing component to that community, camaraderie; those are things that bring us together in that space. A lot of folks need that— in fact, everyone needs that. It's a human thing, right? It's a human struggle. Identity is so huge and a lot of people feel like they’ve lost sense of purpose. Now that you're back in the military, is it hard to think about ending your career? Do you struggle with the thought of losing your purpose? And obviously, you've got many purposes around here. But that's a big purpose for you, though—the Army. Is that scary to you, losing that?
Lisa: Oh, it's huge. You know, I would equate it to empty nest syndrome for people who have been singularly focused on raising their kids. And, you know, I'm gonna put it out there right now that stay-at-home parents who homeschool, who dedicate so much of their time and energy into their kids are absolutely fantastic. I couldn't do that. I don't have the patience for it. I’m nervous right now and my daughter won't leave for college for another eight years. My husband and I are already like, “What are we going to do when they're gone?” So I can't imagine if more of my life was being a mom. And so I have, I have that potential empty nest syndrome feeling about when my kids leave for college, as much as I have that potential empty nest syndrome as when I get out of the military.
And it's a bit worse for me because when I first got off active duty, I lost too much of that affiliation. I'm currently at 17 years of service. I'm actively working now to build that community and build that network so I do have a safety net when I finally hang up my uniform. My husband being a Marine O-6, you know, he's got his community as well. And our communities are intertwined. But I am actively searching to ensure that I maintain that sense of tribe and Jiu-Jitsu is part of that transition period. Team RWB is a great avenue for me because they're into fitness. I'm trying to be the best version of myself. I try not to drink heavily. I try not to be too gluttonous with my food choices.
And I say try on all of these things and see what fits. You know, there are a lot of failures as well, but something I like about Team RWB is that a lot of veteran organizations include, “Hey, let's go out and get a drink. Let's go out and do this or that and it’s not fitness-focused… but with Team RWB, I ran with a guy who did an Ultra Trail marathon and he was an Air Force chaplain, another Team RWB guy, I didn't know that until we were already out there running. And of course, I was wearing my shirt because people talk to me when I wear our Team RWB stuff. I wear it because I want friends. And you know, we were out there running and talking. And that's the kind of stuff they do. He was 58-60 years old and out there running.
I want to win races because I'm the only person in my age group doing that. So being part of a community that supports fitness as well as the tribal behaviors that we all have in the military is my happy place. So to make a short story long again… Yes, I am super nervous about finally hanging up my military uniform, but I am actively fighting against having empty nest syndrome and no longer being part of the community. That includes joining the VFW and doing things as simple as going to the Veterans Day Parade. It’s okay to do those kinds of things. You don't have to leave it to our Vietnam veterans to stand on the sidelines and salute the flag. Let's go out there as younger veterans and enjoy the community as well.
I think that pride in service is so important, and you so aptly highlighted that. I appreciate you speaking on that, and I also appreciate you speaking on your incredible career—and you're still in it, right? And now, you know, doing big things with the book. So, how long have you been with Talent Work Group again?
Lisa: On August 1st, 2022, I became a partner with Talent Work Group. We're a leadership development and talent management firm. We do executive placement, but the place where I am happiest within Talent Work Group is when I do keynote speeches and executive coaching. Additionally, we conduct leadership workshops where we come into companies and help them see the things they can't see on their own. You know, you can't see the forest through the trees, and any soldier knows that, right? Doing a map recon completely changes the view of how you should move through the woods. If you're just in the thick of it with your compass, you're going to go the wrong way. We come in and show people the map.
It's worth mentioning that Talent Work Group is all veteran-owned. We leverage a lot of our skills— The owner and founder is a Navy SEAL. We also have an Air Force linguist who is phenomenal and probably one of the smartest people I've ever met in my entire life. She still manages to look put together, which I haven't figured out how to do yet while acting smart (laughs). We have a Marine Captain on our team who is a combat veteran as well. The four of us, as partners, try hard to use our very different military experiences to help companies grow and develop younger leadership, which is something that's lacking in corporate America. Working with corporate America while still having one foot in uniform, I see a lot of ways that corporate America could help the Army and vice versa.
To learn more about Lisa Jaster and the causes that are important to her check out Talent War Group, her personal website deletetheadjective.com, and follow her on LinkedIn. To order a signed copy of her book Delete the Adjective hit the link. Lisa is also on the Advisory Counsel, of the Dive Pirates Foundation, and is an Advisory Board Member, of Team Red, White, & Blue. Check out her work with A Voice Discovered as well. Episode 50 of The Veterans Project Podcast with Lisa will premier next week at www.thevetsproject.com/podcast and on every major platform.
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Team Red, White & Blue (Team RWB) is a nonprofit organization forging the nation’s leading health and wellness community. Founded in 2010, Team RWB supports veterans as they prioritize their well-being by offering real-life and virtual opportunities to build healthier lifestyles. Team RWB believes that a strong focus on mental and physical health impacts every aspect of life and is essential for veterans to unlock their full potential. For more information about Team RWB and its 200,000 members visit teamrwb.org.