Military veteran entrepreneurs, also known as vetrepreneurs, form a unique entrepreneurial community based in part on their military-related skills and life experiences, the financial endowments derived from their service, and external influences like professional mentors and government-provided training programs. However, a research gap exists in the examination of the degree to which these factors meaningfully influence successful outcomes for military veterans who become small business entrepreneurs. Therefore, the research question for this project was: what experiences, endowments, and external influences impact successful entrepreneurial outcomes for small business vetrepreneurs? This exploratory research consisted of a mixed-methods approach involving a quantitative pilot study that included a survey of 70 veteran small business entrepreneurs (Study 1), and a qualitative case method study that included detailed interviews with 6 additional veteran entrepreneurs (Study 2). Among the findings in Study 1 were that military service is an advantage to vetrepreneurs, but traits such as education, military rank, job held in the military, and financial endowments were not. As discovered in Study 2, however, things like networking, passion for one’s business, and understanding administrative aspects of business are important contributors to successful outcomes. The implications for this research include potential updates to military pre-separation training programs, as well as providing useful data for both researchers and current or future vetrepreneurs. Keywords: Veteran Entrepreneurship, Vetrepreneur, Military Entrepreneurship / Business Administration/Entrepreneurship

This dissertation is a critical engagement with the myth of the reified modern state - that Leviathan that seemingly exists outside of the social while residing within the natural. In doing so it joins an effort to move the field of critical geopolitics beyond critiquing classical geopolitics to one that includes a transformative component, as expressed in the overarching field of critical theory. The undergirding methodological and theoretical approaches of this dissertation are rooted in the interplay between the semiotic, the performative, and the visual, an eclectic framework that grapples with the shifting representational practices of geopolitics - practices that are centered on maintaining a particular meta-narrative of the state - i.e., the myth of the state as a reified subject. As a means to demystify this particular paradigm of the state I look at the contradictions and the challenges proffered by a unique set of actors, soldiers and veterans. I accomplish this: military actors. This is accomplished by bringing to the forefront, through imagery, the visual and communicative performances of their everyday geopolitical practices as military actors and citizens. The three cases that make up this dissertation each address particular interconnections between soldiers, veterans, and the myth of "the state," with each employing an approach that visually interrogates the spatial and material relationships as a means to explore "the everyday" performances of their geopolitical practices. Soldiers and veterans are uniquely situated in geopolitical discourses about the state, as they are framed and/or frame themselves, depending on the context, as both "state" and "non-state" actors and, as such, through their conjoined identities can collapse the meta-narrative of the state-as-object by their very "being." In this interrogation, therefore, I add to an effort to push for a reconceptualization of the state, arguing that "it" should be re-imaged or reframed as an everyday relationship between citizens - a state as relationship rather than a state as object. This shift moves a critical geopolitical inquiry away from reproducing what it critiques, to critically engaging with the practices that produce the representations that help to constitute it.

Yonkman and Bridgeland (2009) and Nesbit (2011) have each offered studies in recent years in which military veterans reported possessing skills and values that facilitate civic engagement. I investigated these claims by exploring basic training in one branch of the United States (U.S.) military, the Marine Corps. I conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 10 enlisted Marine Corps veterans and 7 drill instructors to ascertain their perceptions regarding the didactic aspirations and pedagogies of their service's basic training related to skills and values development. I utilized a civic capacities model developed by Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) and Kirlin (2003) to examine whether Marines' entry training could be classified as civic in character. According to this study/s participants, Marine Corps Basic Training did teach skills and values that qualify as civic dispositions. I also explored several pedagogical strategies utilized by the Marines, such as learning communities, role modeling, narrative pedagogy and the use of a capstone exercise, which could be applied by civic educators. Topics for future research of the sort undertaken here include both national and international comparative studies of entry-level military training, the effects of combat on veterans' civic dispositions and whether and how community involvement can aid in veterans' transitions to civilian life. / Ph. D.

In five multi-method studies this dissertation examined how context based morality may explain increased incidence of combat related psychological difficulties among US service personnel. We were particularly interested in the relationship between causing harm to others and moral self-perceptions and related emotional consequences. In studies 1 and 2 we found that our samples of Iraq and Afghan war veterans reported that a soldier would feel increased levels of guilt and shame and negative moral judgments of the self when they return home and reflect on incidents of harm that may have occurred during their deployments. These two studies were supported by three short experiments showing that different moral judgments of harm were made depending on whether the harm doing was interpersonal or intergroup. Interpersonal harm doing was judged more harshly than intergroup harm leading us to believe that while in combat harm doing had minimal consequences on the self-perceptions and emotions of a soldier and that when they returned home to civilian life where interpersonal moral standards are more prevalent their self-perceptions and emotional wellbeing was affected by their prior conduct.

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INTRODUCTION: There is uncertainty in the prevalence of chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) in military veterans. A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to elucidate this issue, and examine potential effect modifiers of CNCP prevalence. Additionally, chronic pain is a pervasive and debilitating condition that disproportionately affects military veterans. We recently completed a qualitative study of Canadian veterans living with chronic pain to identify their research priorities; however, the generalizability of our findings was uncertain. METHODS: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Web of Science were searched from 2013 to January 21, 2021, for observational studies reporting “chronic pain” or pain ≥ 3 months in military veterans. The random-effects meta-analysis was used for pooling data, the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations approach was used for rating quality of evidence, and the Instrument to Assess the Credibility of Effect Modification Analyses was used to rate credibility of the subgroup analyses. Furthermore, from January to March 2021, we emailed a 45-item cross-sectional survey to a list of Canadian veterans that asked about the relative importance of 20 research priorities regarding chronic pain. We explored for statistical significance between male and female responses for any item in which the proportion of endorsement showed a ≥10% difference. RESULTS: 41 observational studies with 5,550,375 military veterans were included. The overall pooled CNCP prevalence is 34% (95% confidence interval (CI) 25% to 45%). However, significant subgroup effect was found for type of prevalence measure (generic or specific) among military veterans (test of interaction p=0.007, moderate subgroup credibility): the pooled generic CNCP prevalence of 43%, 95% CI 29% to 57% (Low-certainty evidence) vs. the pooled specific type of CNCP prevalence of 14%, 95% CI 6.7% to 23% (Moderate-certainty evidence). A multivariable meta-regression model adjusted for proportion lost to follow-up found the type of prevalence measure to be the only significant predictor of CNCP prevalence (p < 0.0001). 313 of 699 Canadian military veterans living with chronic pain completed ≥50% of the survey (45% response rate). Respondents were predominantly male (77%) with a median age of 52 (interquartile range [IQR] 44-58). All 20 research priorities listed in the survey were endorsed as very important by ≥52% of respondents, and three received endorsement by ≥85%: (I) optimizing chronic pain management after release from the military; and (II) identifying and (III) treating mental illness among veterans living with chronic pain. Women were more likely than men to endorse research on post-surgical care for chronic pain prevention or research on holistic care for chronic pain. Men were more likely than women to endorse research on physical activity or exercise for chronic pain. Individuals with higher gross income (≥$80,000) were less likely to endorse research into physiotherapy for chronic pain, or chiropractic for chronic pain compared to those with lower gross income. Individuals with greater age are less likely to endorse research on medical cannabis for chronic pain. CONCLUSIONS: The overall prevalence of CNCP is 34% among military veterans. For generic CNCP, the prevalence is 43%; for a given subtype of CNCP, the prevalence is 11%. Methodologically robust studies are required to more precisely determine CNCP prevalence. The most salient research priorities among our respondents were optimizing chronic pain management during service and after discharge from the military, including co-morbid mental illness. Differences in gender, gross income, and age are implicated in the endorsement of therapy-related priorities, which include surgery, physical activity or exercise, chiropractic, and medical cannabis. Our findings provide insight into the research priorities of Canadian military veterans living with chronic pain. These findings should be considered by granting agencies when formulating calls for proposals, and by researchers who wish to undertake research that will address the needs of military veterans living with chronic pain. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Background: Posttraumatic-Stress Disorder (PTSD) is less common in older adults than in younger adults, and little is known about specific risk factors for PTSD in older adults. We investigated the association between self-esteem in late adolescence and PTSD in older adults. Method: Using a cohort design, 1,436 individuals who had been assessed approximately 40 years earlier in their junior and senior year of high school with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) were evaluated for PTSD using the PTSD Checklist (PCL-17). Results: Fully controlled logistic regression models indicated that lower self-esteem in late adolescence predicted PTSD in the overall sample of older adults but not in the veterans-only subgroup. Limitations: The main limitations include self-completed measures to estimate PTSD diagnosis and lack of specific information on traumatic events. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that lower self-esteem from a young age may be a risk factor for PTSD in older age.

Goodbye to All That Again concerns the odyssey of an Iraq War veteran who must complete his journey past desert combat and academic strife in order to reclaim his heroic identity. The novel uses a fragmented storytelling mode that offers readers thirteen years of the protagonist’s timeline in a nonlinear sequence. Through this technique, the novel evokes the cognitive disassociation experienced by individuals who suffer Post Traumatic Stress and echoes the postmodern practices employed by American military novelists such as Joseph Heller and Tim O’Brien for the last sixty years. GOODBYE TO ALL THAT AGAIN seeks to intervene in the discourse of the American war novel by updating the depiction of military members from unwilling draftees, the situation Heller and O’Brien portray, to that of career-driven volunteers. The novel also considers adjustment concerns raised by the political correctness movement, a bar to civilian reintegration unknown by prior generations of veterans. In doing so, the writer hopes to adjust the zeitgeist, a major concern of his practice as detailed in his STATEMENT OF PURPOSE, toward a more accurate representation of military members so that society can more effectively meet their needs.

While there is considerable research linking trauma to psychological distress, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), among military populations, some service members may develop other variants of psychological difficulties following exposure to traumatic life events. For example, moral injury, a more recently studied outcome within the field of trauma, is conceptualized to occur when a person perceives their response to a morally challenging situation as a transgression that may lead to an incongruence with their morals producing moral emotions (i.e., shame, guilt, and anxiety; Litz et al., 2009). The current study investigated the role of self-compassion in the relationship between moral injury and psychological distress (i.e., PTSD and depression) among a sample of 216 military veterans recruited from TurkPrime online panels. Among these military veterans, a conditional process analysis of our moderated mediation model suggests an indirect effect of moral injury predicting depression symptoms through guilt, Index = 1.469, SE = .460, 95% CI [.602, 2.409] and shame, Index = -.803, SE = .346, 95% CI [-1.552, -.161] was conditioned on different levels of self-compassion. Findings are expected to have important implications for treatment conceptualization for military populations.

The inability of business owners to hire skilled employees affects the profitability of a small business. Small business owners may attain profitability by understanding the value of military veterans and cultivating strategies for the hiring and recruitment process. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies that business owners in Fayetteville, North Carolina used to recruit military veterans as a means to acquire skilled employees to maximize productivity, profitability, and sustainability. The conceptual framework of this study included human capital theory and recruitment theory. The purposive sample consisted of 6 participants who were small business owners. Data from interviews and supporting documents were processed and analyzed using data source triangulation to identify 3 emergent themes. Findings indicated that, for these 6 Fayetteville small business owners, job description and transition workshops, resume review and communication, and accommodations and benefits were key attributes related to the successful recruitment of military veterans as skilled employees. Specifically, streamlined hiring processes, relationship building, and access to resources were predictive of a successful hire. Knowledge barriers regarding hiring processes prevented efficient communication between small business owners and military veterans, but business owners cultivated strategies to help with hiring military veterans. The implications for positive social change include the potential for business owners to capitalize on the skills that military veterans bring to the civilian workforce, which in turn may improve the economy.