One veteran’s research helps combat PTSD

This is the second in a series of profiles of current graduate students at the University of Mississippi. To read the previous profile, click here.

There are currently over one million active-duty personnel across the five branches of the United States military — and there are over sixteen million veterans.

Among the benefits awarded to those who served in the military is the GI Bill, which can be used to pay for college, graduate school and training programs.

However, when these veterans step foot on campus, they are in civilian clothing while it is the ROTC students who wear the uniform.

And often it is those in the uniform — young ROTC students — who are easily identified and thanked for their service.

While unintentional, this can leave veterans feeling invisible and further contribute to struggles they face to find their own unique identity as veterans. This struggle, combined with the strain of transitioning from active duty to civilian life, has proven to be difficult for many to navigate.

Travis Endicott, a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Mississippi, is actively working to combat the identity struggle among veterans.

Originally from Crawfordsville, Ind., Endicott started his undergraduate career at Purdue University but left early to join the Navy as an intelligence specialist. He later returned to school and eventually received a master’s degree in political science from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Endicott did not ever intend to move south and the University of Mississippi had never been on his radar. But he attended a panel with two professors from the University of Mississippi’s Political Science Department who encouraged him to look into the university’s PhD program.

Not too long after, Endicott made the decision to move to Oxford, Miss., and further pursue the answer to a question that had been nipping at him for years — just what is the identity of the American veteran?

It might seem simple — to help further define the identity of veterans — but Endicott explained the process has not been without challenges.

“The first hurdle I had to cross was no one had actually looked at ‘do veterans have a sense of identity of being a veteran,’” says Endicott. “It seems like a no brainer because, you know, we go get our free meals on November 11 and we stand up at baseball games so people can applaud.”

However, Endicott points out there is so much more to the veteran identity than just being recognized at a sporting event or wearing a hat.

For many veterans, their identity extends to their immediate family members and can influence the communities in which they choose to live and the careers they pursue upon completion of service. But this identity is not without its struggles — and many of the struggles are ones we cannot see.

Despite never physically serving in a combat zone, Endicott still faces a daily guilt that comes from having worked in intelligence and knowing actions he took while based in the United States could have had detrimental consequences for communities halfway across the world.

“When I started looking into the literature about the trauma of combat and the regret associated with it, it was cathartic,” says Endicott. He found solace in reading about other veterans who felt guilt associated with their military or combat experience.

While Endicott says his research is helping him better understand more broadly the identity of the American veteran, it also has served as an important healing tool for him as he grapples with his own PTSD.

In the past decade or so, the conversation surrounding mental health and PTSD in the veteran community has become more mainstream — and the conversation is starting to extend to those who served in non-standard combat capacities, such as intelligence specialists and drone pilots.

There is even action being taken at the federal level to address this issue.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed into law a bipartisan bill which aims to bolster the Department of Veterans’ Affairs mental health workforce and increase access to care for rural veterans.

Together, we are following through on our commitment to supporting our nation’s heroes, making sure that no veteran falls through the cracks,” says Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Ranking Member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and lead sponsor of the veterans mental health bill.

Travis Endicott is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of Mississippi. His doctoral research examines how military combat experience affects political behavior and public opinion in military veterans. In order to examine this phenomenon, he takes a multidisciplinary approach that blends the fields of military psychology with political behavior in order to explain how combat experience alters the way that veterans view their political environment.

He received his master’s degree in Political Science from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, where his thesis investigated the United States’ grand strategy approaches to global straits and how a thawing of the Arctic could pose a threat to United States National Security around the Bering Strait.

A version of this story was published in the University of Mississippi Graduate School Fall/Winter 2020 newsletter.