Restored: Stories of Conflict, Healing, & Peace

The Military Culture Shift Limited Series Leadership Podcast launches Feb 15, 2024! Interviews with experts and leaders, (many of them mentioned in the book) will bring the book to life in a multi-sensory way, and breathe life into your home and leadership, and especially validate your story. Episodes will start on Feb 15th and roll out weekly so make sure you are subscribed so you don’t miss them and have picked up the book if you...

Corie sits down with her husband Matthew to talk about the process of writing Military Culture Shift, behind the scenes of being an author, and Matt's thoughts on what it means to be a "ground-level" leader. Matthew, an active duty service member and Corie, a mental health clinician, coach, and consultant, share some of the shifts they have seen over the years.

This podcast is based on the book, Military Culture Shift by clinical c...

Corie sits down with military historian Dr. Edward A. Gutiérrez who studied the Doughboys from WW1. Dr. Gutiérrez specifically researched how a sense of honor and duty were engrained in the everyday culture of Americans prior to WW1 propelling many of them to enlist in the war. In this talk, Dr Gutiérrez suggests that as a culture moves away from embracing suffering, and even war and death, we lose cohesiveness, our humanity, and r...

The Defense Budget is not likely part of your dinner table conversations. Yet, the budget impacts the lives of everyday military families in the groceries they have access to, the condition of their housing, and of course their paycheck. I wanted to make the very confusing topic of Congress and Defense Budgets as simple as possible, so who better to invite than Heba Abdelaal, a Millennial military spouse, former congressional staff...

In the Army, there is an old saying that the commander is responsible for everything the unit does or fails to do. When morale begins to fail in the institution, the culture looks to the top. When the Afghanistan exit began to unravel, veterans and even some active duty looked to top military leadership, mainly the Joint Chiefs of the branches as well as the Chairman for responsibility and accountability. Some were even angry that ...

Starting in 2008, cell phones and social media quickly escalated into our daily lives. Millennials filled the lower ranks of the force while op-tempos reached exhausting levels and sequestration tainted the beginning of a second decade of war as it forced us to dangerously downsize. The “halo effect” left many Gen X and older Millennials, confused- trying to reconcile their positive expectations of the military with reality. Techno...

As a Gen X, I wish I could say that it was my generation that was the Hero generation. However, Millennials swung away from independence and invited our multi-generational nation into a giant family meeting. With their signature question “why”, they have challenged us to talk about the many elephants in the room, making all of us a little (or a lot) uncomfortable. As conversations became public around diversity, mold in housing, an...

Can an institution as large as our Department of Defense change? What is it about our relationship with the DOD that makes it difficult to ask for healthy accountability and transparency? I sat down with Ryan Sweazy, Director of Walk the Talk Foundation, a non-profit that protects military whistleblowers, to help us understand the power dynamics many feel every day. 

Walk the Talk Foundation: https://walkthetalkfoundation.org/

Miss...

While the military culture is a subculture of America, the military spouse community is a subculture of the military. Similar to our military kids, these subcultures experience a unique perspective separate from what service members and government employees experience. While they are not employees and (mostly) aren’t regulated by the institution, their relationship with the Department of Defense has a history of confusion, expectat...

In 2023, Gallup reported that America’s confidence in major institutions such as banking, education, religion, and government was historically the lowest it has ever been. Like a see-saw, trust has been declining for decades but there was always enough trust in the older or youngest generations to keep the see-saw somewhat balanced and institutions funded and functional. As confidence has steadily declined, some have said that the ...

This week, we are going to the source. Elise, or "Elle", shared in the book the powerful impact of leaders who made her feel seen and valued. In this interview, I ask tough questions about social media, Gen Z's expectation for diversity, her thoughts on sexual harassment, and more. Every leader should listen to this interview.

This podcast is based on the book Military Culture Shift by clinical consultant and SME on military family...

Breaking from regularly scheduled programming, I'm sharing some of the topics and trends surfacing since publishing Military Culture Shift. 

This podcast is based on the book Military Culture Shift by clinical consultant and SME on military family culture, Corie Weathers. 

Order your copy of Military Culture Shift https://militaryfamilybooks.com/products/military-culture-shift-by-corie-weathers

Listen to Corie's Lifegiver Podcast h...

As our military valiantly scrambled to leave Kabul airport, the explosion at Abbey Gate killed 13 of our service members. All but one were Gen Z. For much of the older generation, war was all we knew but Gen Z  had only been coming in for a few years, the oldest of them only four when 9/11 happened. Losing them this way, for this reason, at the end of our very long and painful chapter, yet at the beginning of theirs seemed even mor...

Shortly after I recorded the Spouse’s Roundtable, Jessica- the millennial spouse whose husband Andrew served on the ground during the Afghanistan exit, reached out to me to say that Andrew was ready to share his story. Still serving, Andrew felt limited in what he could say as well as whether he was ready to share.

None of us could forget the powerful images of the chaos at the Kabul airport in August 2021. It is seared into our mi...

I will never forget the feeling that rushed over me when I heard about the Pineapple Express during August 2021. Scott Mann, a retired Lieutenant Colonel and former U.S. Army Green Beret joined with other veterans who resolved to fulfill their promises to the Aghan allies for protection.

The efforts of Scott and other veterans through the Pineapple Express and other civilian-led efforts were nothing short of heroic. But their commi...

Over the course of writing Military Culture Shift and especially present in the last three episodes, the phrase “moral injury” has come up again and again. Brought into mainstream awareness by Jonathan Shay in the 90s and early 2000s, his first book Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character introduced moral injury as a distinct second syndrome from PTSD. 

As progress continues to evolve on the individualized t...

In the final chapter of Military Culture Shift, I reference a theory of reconstitution written by Stoney Portis, after he commanded the 3-61 CAV troops that survived the now historic Battle of COP Keating and needed to somehow become mission-ready again. Reading his reflection on what it took to wholistically serve the battle-weary troops who had earned every right to hang up the one tattered uniform they had left, I knew it was a ...

There were several ways I could have ended this series and many interviews I could have done, however, when Matt mentioned that I should end it with him interviewing me, it felt right. So... here I am. Here we are. We share my reflections on the project, where things go from here, and most importantly, the power of championing others- especially your spouse.  Special thank you to SO MANY PEOPLE who have supported me throughout the ...