🔊 Kinghorn “I'm not somebody who can speak for veterans”

Logan: I am a little bit sick, so I can try not to breathe anything much.

Warren: Yeah, that's fine. How you doing?

Logan: Alright, thanks. Going fine, I think.

Warren: Well, I didn't think too much about what to say. I don't know what to say, but I would love to just see where you are, connect with you. I didn't like how our last conversation left off.

Logan: Yeah, so that's fine. Try again. Uh, well, what do you want to see out of this conversation? You're concerned about productivity, so...

Logan: Yeah, I'm not sure what to say when you say you don't know what it is that you came here to say or to hear.

Warren: Yeah, well, I really don't know. That's genuine. I'm not hiding anything. I think I left our last conversation—you just had, in your last conversation you said that you didn't think I trusted you. And I think before that phone call, that's not what I would've said, but I wasn't quite sure after that conversation whether I do or whether I could. And I also sense strongly that you don't trust me. And I think partly that relates to—I felt that especially strongly, I never think about it a lot, but I felt that especially strongly when at the Veterans Partnership meeting last week. I don't want to be engaging with student veterans in divinity school if I can also be doing so, and I feel like we're somehow running at cross purposes or not on the same page or in any way not in good relationship with each other. That's not healthy for me, but it's also not helping for the students. And also, you know, Centurion's Guild—haven't known about how to think about the relationship with that.

Logan: You’re a donor still, technically.

Warren: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So, but what does that mean? I'm not quite sure what that means. I think primarily it's around, you know, I want to continue to support veteran students at the Divinity school. And a part of a lot of what the conversation was about in August was around how the Divinity School treats veterans. And I'm part of that. And so I just don't know what it means to work the same things in the same space, well, given where the last conversations...

Logan: I don't know what's going on at Divinity School 'cause I wasn't part of those conversations. I'm a preceptor, I'm a junior employee.

Warren: So whatever your or the institution's responsibility is to me in that sense, I guess that's your answer?

Logan: Yeah.

Warren: I mean, I think when we talked in August specifically around the question of the spiritual formation group and about the request made specifically around veteran spiritual formation group. And then the set of emails that came apart from that. And, you know, when the answer to that was a no to your leadership, that was—

Logan: No. Her answer to me was it was a no. She said there was no budget, but the answer didn't change.

Warren: Yeah.

Logan: At the time it was an answer—the answer was no to a spiritual formation group.

Warren: Yeah. And I was part of the conversations with her about the goodness of having a formation group, and she was—I don't know. When we talked she was not set against it. I wasn't talking her out of that. We did have a conversation with Ned Parker about the situation, about whether that would be helpful or not.

Logan: And what'd the veterans say that you talked to about it?

Warren: That they thought that it would be also, 15 in general, and—

Logan: Those conversations came after your conversation with Rhonda and Megan and after your conversation with Jeff and Dan and Ellen?

Warren: That was spring. Yeah.

Logan: So what are we talking about?

Warren: I don't—I mean, that's probably why I haven't had to re-talk. I'm not sure what we were talking about.

Logan: Well, you were concerned about productivity in one of your emails, so I want to make sure that we honor that.

Warren: Um, well, sure. So what does it mean to work together, at least not apart from each other, to work for the flourishing of veteran students and communities? I mean, what do you need from me in that regard, and what does that look like?

Logan: I'm not working with veterans at the divinity school. I'm a preceptor.

Warren: Right, but you're engaged with student veterans.

Logan: Not in the way you seem to be implying.

Warren: I just mean in communication, not like—

Logan: I don't communicate with them through my role as a preceptor.

Warren: No, but through your role as executive director of Centurion's Guild. Well—

Logan: That's not part of the Divinity School.

Warren: No, but that's what I mean. Your presence, the fact that you're present in the community running a significant—

Logan: What do you mean by community?

Warren: Oh, okay. You're here and are connected with this in some way as a preceptor. But even if you weren't, to be right here in Durham at St. Joseph's running Centurion's Guild, an incredible resource for veteran students in school and for vets more broadly. And therefore, I want veteran students to benefit from what you're doing.

Logan: I'm a preceptor.

Warren: Oh, not, um—

Logan: How would they benefit from what I'm doing for Centurion's Guild? Guild doesn't have a presence on campus.

Warren: Because they can come off campus and they can participate in reading materials and participate in Bible studies. I mean, right, that's been happening.

Logan: I still don't know what that has to do with the divinity school other than just geographical proximity.

Warren: It's the same students. It's the same students.

Logan: No, it's not the same students. There's people in Durham that don't go to Duke that are involved. I'm still struggling to understand what the point is. What is the product that you'd like to see from this conversation?

Warren: A sense of a community that is working together.

Logan: Okay.

Warren: I feel like right now, rightly or wrongly, you don't see me as an ally in that regard.

Logan: No.

Warren: And I hope that I would be an ally. And so that is—and I think it's a limit for me that I'm doing what I can to be an ally in the ways that I know how to do that. And yet at the same time, you and maybe others also are not perceiving me in that way. And so what does it mean to be an ally for veterans?

Logan: So a product of this conversation is for you to understand what it would mean on at least my terms to be an ally to veteran students. Okay.

Warren: And I'm not sure I could go with that. I'm not sure—

Logan: Oh, well then—

Warren: But I mean, at least I want to understand.

Logan: Oh, I don't want to waste either of our time just having a conversation about what it might look like, because I think you can find that out from talking to anybody in other groups engaged in social justice and allyship. If you're not willing to commit to anything, you're not really being an ally, and so I can't help you. I don't want to waste either of our times if you're not committed to being an ally in the terms as they're understood by student veterans.

Warren: I am committed, broadly construed. I am committed to being—now, in terms of just what student veterans—I'm not sure that I would need to hear what all—I'm saying the way that I think you were wanting me to be an ally in August is not something that—and I can commit to, and you talked about why that is.

Logan: That may mean you're not an ally. 'Cause that word is used by African American groups, gender minority groups for people who act and assist on behalf of whatever marginalized community. And that when it comes time to act, that allies are willing to put their body on the line, go to protests, not speak up, make room for voices not their own.

Warren: Okay. Alright. So whether allies helpful or not, I would still like to use it, but how can I be a helpful—how can I be a faculty supporter of the veterans at Divinity School?

Logan: I'm not at the Divinity School.

Warren: Okay.

Logan: Any reflections I give you are going to be three years old in that regard, and the Divinity School has made that clear as well. So I don't want to repeat what I think is self-evident. I'm not a part of the divinity school, only in the sense that I'm a junior employee.

Warren: Yeah, that's not what I was asking. You have pretty strong opinions. That's what I'm asking.

Logan: But they're not welcome and they still aren't welcome. I don't get the sense that what you're asking me is something that you genuinely want. You are asking me for something with a caveat: let me hear it, but then I'm gonna reserve judgment to back out when I see fit. And that maintains a certain kind of social power that I'm not willing to engage with.

Warren: Well, maybe not. I think I meant to speak for a conversation that would make at least clear how—

Logan: We had a conversation as friends, and you used the word "enemies" to describe our relationship. So now I don't—it would be unwise of me.

Warren: You said we're not enemies.

Logan: You're implying that we are.

Warren: No, I said we're not and we shouldn't be. I never said we were.

Logan: You did on several occasions on that phone conversation.

Warren: I said you're not my enemy.

Logan: I never said I was either. So you are putting that language on me and defending yourself against a shadow argument. I never said we were enemies, so there's no point for you to say that we're not. "Don't think about an elephant"—why are you thinking about an elephant? Because I told you to. So it's not fair to say that you didn't set that.

Warren: Okay. Whatever I said, I didn't say. I mean—

Logan: No. Language is important. Language is really important. So when you send me an email that says "reaching out" and then use language that in other contexts implies that I have asked you for something that is important—do you remember the conversation we had about Clay Adams and vet shaming on that phone call? He used the same word you did in your email: productivity. So I have to be really careful that we are both being productive. That is coded language for "don't be an angry veteran," and so we cannot have a conversation so long as you're reserving that social power to yourself. Until you're able, as a person, not as a faculty member, not as an MD or a clinician, but you, Warren, are able to have a conversation with me, Logan, without those ties, strings that have historically been attached to our relationship, we are not going to have a conversation. That's what that would mean to have a conversation with me, and I don't think that we've had that. That's how I see it. It's also the case that I can't, insofar as talking about the Divinity school, I can't extricate myself from that vocation. And I can't say I'm not speaking—

Warren: I'm not asking you to.

Logan: I've said that I am not a part of the Divinity school because the Divinity school has many things. I'm not part of the Divinity school, but I haven't asked you to extricate yourself from the divinity school.

Warren: Right. So I'm here as personally present as I can be. I'm not trying to hide. I'm not trying to—we're sitting across the same table from each other. I'm sitting here as a human being trying to, hoping to understand, not wanting to use the wrong kinds of language, wanting to try to figure out what it means to speak honestly with you and to—so, I don't know. I mean, I'm not trying to invoke social—

Logan: Nobody does.

Warren: Yeah. To be speaking with you. I think that an invocation of social privilege would be either not to meet or something like that.

Logan: No, social privilege is not knowing. Emailing Giovanna and Rob saying that you hope that the conversation that you had with Jeff, Dan, and Ellen would lead to direct conversations. You disclosed that you knew that direct conversations was what was right. And then you had another one with Megan somehow, and I don't know however many others. So that social privilege. Social privilege is being invited to speak on Veterans Day and not being a veteran at a place that just shrugs off the responsibility to veterans. That's social privilege.

Warren: Do you think it's wrong to be engaged in meetings where veterans aren't present about veterans?

Logan: Yes.

Warren: Do you think there should never be conversations among faculty and staff at Divinity school where veterans are discussed if there's no veterans present?

Logan: You and I know that's not what happened. What happened was Dan and I had an interaction much like this one, and I was honest and had a conversation with him, and that backfired. Then it sounded like I was retaliated against even after I told them that I was nervous about my employment. So again, no, I don't think that faculty can't have a conversation, but I also know what the kind of conversation that's been had. So I'm not gonna divorce the actual experience and history of this place from some abstract conversation about whether or not in principle it's okay. So a better question is why are there not veterans in this conversation that you're having? Why are you speaking for veterans on Veterans Day?

Warren: Well, that's a separate question, but the conversation—there's two different conversations you're describing. I don't think I want to concede that staff and faculty at the divinity school can't or shouldn't be part of conversations around any particular issues of relevance to students without having those present in the conversation. I do think that it's important, and one of the things that came of that meeting—except student report, that meeting with Jeff and Dan and Ellen—was clearly the number one item was to involve the veteran student leaders in the conversation. They weren't there at that meeting. I mean, I can't speak to that. I wasn't gonna call that meeting. But the fact that they should be in the future is something that I clearly advocated. Institutions sometimes move quickly, but it's happened. The Dean changed since then, which has made everything complicated, just in terms of how institutions work. But I think that's part of what happened. The context of meeting with Rhonda and Megan was—somebody asked me to come and meet and talk. That's what happened.

Logan: Before as well, that social privilege.

Warren: It's just location. It's not privilege. It may be privilege also, but it's also just location.

Logan: And you have a location that is—that there are no veterans on faculty as part of that quote unquote location.

Warren: Right, right. Yeah, that's right.

Logan: So I'm not—yeah.

Warren: But I mean, I think you're putting me in the position of—or I feel you're putting me in the position of basically the only way not to get into that is to disengage, you know, and to just not be part of these conversations. And that would be a pretty—that would be a possible option, you know, that would be a privilege. I'm trying to engage, trying to do so in a way that is honoring and respectful of veterans who are present. And to do that in a way that—I think to do that in a way that suggests you can't be in a meeting and be like, yeah, we need veterans here, so let's get them involved in the future—for that meeting itself to be somehow an implication of privilege, it's not appropriate. I just—

Logan: Okay, then, yeah, I don't know. Tell that to God, I guess, but I'm not gonna be struggling when anybody comes asking me where I was when someone was hurting. As I said in the phone call, you cannot defend an institution that's hurting people and also think that you're being an ally to those that are being hurt.

Warren: Can you speak to ways presently this year?

Logan: I haven't been there. I've been dismissed from the divinity school, so I can't speak in any way and don't intend to, other than my preceptorship.

Warren: You're still a preceptor this year?

Logan: Yep.

Warren: Yeah. Why I—I don't know what to say or how to engage. I think I'm committed to working with the veteran student group to be able to support them, to be a resource for them, to advocating for them in the faculty to the extent that I can. I've got limitations on what I can do just in terms of time and everything else, but I want to be in that space and I've tried to be there, not somebody who has the answers. And I'm not somebody who can speak for veterans in ways that shouldn't—your voices.

Logan: Not just on Veterans Day. Todd Mayberry told me that he was working with you to figure out why some veterans weren't feeling welcome and creating inclusive language. So instead of going to veterans, you participated in a conversation that should have been with veterans. So this is a common occurrence, or at least more than once.

Warren: That's in conversation with, in this case, Giovanna. We spoke about the use of orientation. And I talked, I did talk to Todd and I did so in ways that—what I said around possibilities for orientation—and it was important having listened to you and what was said during orientation, and it was a conversation. It wasn't like getting veterans on a conference call, I guess. It wasn't always the veterans overhearing the emails, I don't think. I don't think that being a responsible faculty advocate for veterans in the Divinity School entails saying everything within the hearing of veterans.

Logan: I'm not saying that it is. I'm criticizing you for social privilege that you're not willing to engage critically with. You could have asked Sonya Andrews, Matt Anderson, Giovanna. You could have asked a veteran to speak, to preach on Veteran's Day. When Megan asked you to—Megan, who told me no, and then turned my idea over to another veteran. Administrative veteran, not faculty veteran, not student veteran. So people in the divinity school are consistently telling me no, taking my ideas, and then giving them to someone else. On top of that, using language that seems relatively implicit but clear that I'm not a member of the community. And that does not seem to upset you in any way whatsoever?

Warren: It does upset me because I don't think it's necessary, but I also think that the way that—I recognize this is not gonna be persuasive and that this isn't something that will seem like just an invocation of privilege, but I don't think that the kind of being on outside of these conversations that right now you're experiencing that I'm experiencing you in is the way that it has to be. I think there are possibilities for that. Could have been, I don't know about that. Sure. I think that possibilities—

Logan: You can say no without extricating yourself from the divinity school. You could have told Ellen and Dan and Jeff, there's something amiss here. I don't know what you did. I'm not you, I wasn't in meetings. But from what I hear, it doesn't sound like you've been doing very much. You have offered what seems to me to be very little resistance to the social privilege of the divinity school more widely. So the product of this conversation, if it's to be your understanding how you can be a better ally—I hear you arguing against that. So I'm not gonna fight you on that.

Warren: Well, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking of me in this.

Logan: To be a friend, not a faculty member. You criticized my effectiveness and never questioned your own effectiveness for six years. Have you written an article about veterans at Duke? It's your wheelhouse.

Warren: No, I haven't.

Logan: So you've studied veterans, you've made them a reference object, but you've never allowed them into the conversation.

Warren: What's writing an article about veterans? It's not—

Logan: You're right, it's a token gesture.

Warren: What's that?

Logan: It's a token gesture. It would indicate that you were not 100% aligned with the institution. It would be more than what you've done now. 'Cause listening and regurgitating status quo hasn't changed anything in six years. But somehow it's my effectiveness and my productivity in question. And I'm the one being involuntarily extricated from the divinity school under no seeming objections from you or anybody else. So I accept it. No one has advocated for me over and above being a veteran. So when I talk about trust and qualifications—Megan, you, Todd, Dan, Ellen, Elaine—there's something about me that they see as not qualified, valuable, fill in the blank. I see a pattern. I was trained to see patterns. I think we've talked about this. That pattern to me seems unjust, and you still get to participate in conversations while patting me on the back for accomplishments that you or anybody else may say I did without letting that have any actual traction. So Richard Hayes can say I was an excellent student, and then Dale Martin was great. But when it comes down to critically assessing an article that he wrote with Nigel Biggar or against Nigel Biggar or changing anything in the Divinity School, nothing sticks. So it seems to me to be without merit. I don't care what y'all are doing 'cause it doesn't seem to be changing anything. Every student leader that has gone through has written off the Divinity School. Giovanna is likely to be next because that's a pattern. You have sat in the middle of this and still seem unaffected, so good luck with that. I don't know if that's good or bad. I think it's probably bad. You keep up the appearance of having, of being someone who is sensitive and tenderhearted. Yet nothing has changed for six years. So a reasonable person must assume that in fact you have a hard heart. I stand by my earlier statement that you do not feel what I feel. You feel something and you do stuff, but there's something different. Your threshold is higher. I encountered this on the first day—the uneasiness you felt for one month, I felt for six years. So I don't know what I can do for you or for anybody, but the divinity school's spoken. I'm not a member. You have given that your rubber stamp. So I don't know what we are other than acquaintances. You have more capacity to change things than I do, so you have a greater responsibility. Until there's some change between me and the Divinity school, I'm not a member of the Divinity School. I'm a preceptor, contract worker.

Warren: I think that I'm—that's me. I think that's frustrated me over the last three months, that—and this is where I said this to you before, and I don't mean it in a way—that conversation that we had with Dan and then subsequent conversation we had that time. And especially with Dean coming on board and having a very personal interest in veterans issues. There was an opening there. I think there still is an opening of opportunity for some of the kind of some of the things that you've been working for, for six years. For greater participation, for greater voice of student veterans in relationship to administration. More attention to veteran status within the diversity inclusion conversations. For having veterans better represented in the Chapel. For just honoring and building up the veteran student community. Those were conversations that I think that you started, that I think still are—there still are things that—I think what I had hoped in sitting in the dean's office last spring in that conversation is that those would be things that you, having initiated the conversation with Dan, that set that in motion, would be excited about and would want to be finding ways to partner in, in different ways.

Logan: I'm on someone's blacklist. I'm not partnering, and that's not because of anything that I'm doing.

Warren: Well—

Logan: So I'm not sure why it would matter if I'm supposed to feel somehow proud of what I've accomplished, just if what—

Warren: Let's be—I don't think it had to be that way. I do think that when—after that meeting you made clear to me, you made clear to Dan, you made clear to the administration around that you are deeply unhappy with that meeting. I think then that some of the—and I'm not, I don't mean this to sound like I'm trying to turn this on you. It's just that there were and are tremendous opportunities that if we could all work together on the same page—you and the current students and me and others to focus on that—then I think it's attainable. I think what I've witnessed is, and I'm not trying to sound like I'm blaming, I'm not trying to make it that way, but it seems like there's an awful lot of energy spent both on your part and also on my part and administration's part on kind of these kinds of questions of what's happening here. That's actually diverted attention away from some of those possibilities, from some of those things that we talked about. I wanted you to be part of that, you know. I wanted to do that and I think even up to the spring, even knowing that you had these very frank concerns with Dan about going to OIE or about going to Department of Education or whatever else, knowing that—I mean, you're in the Durham community, you graduated at Divinity school, you're leading Centurion's Guild. No reason why you couldn't be a really catalytic person in these conversations. And I think the thing that I've felt in the last few months is that we actually haven't been able to—that the process of working toward those has been made more complicated by the fact that it's not clear that the veteran community as a whole is working in the same way. And I think that's where—I just don't think it had to be like it has been for the last six months.

Logan: Why are you telling me that and not the divinity school? Because you're telling me that sounds as though it's my responsibility what the divinity school has now determined is counterproductive or anything else. I'd like to believe you, but I keep getting blackballed, so I'm not wasting my energy anymore.

Warren: I think it's a two-way street. And I'm just saying honestly, I don't think it had to be the way that it was. I think the thing that was—even when we had a phone conversation back in August and exchanged those emails, I realized that it seemed like just doing nothing and being, allowing things to go, but I really felt like there was movement in these last six months, a possibility for that there had not been before. Openings of opportunity. And there still are. And there still are there, but one of the realities is just like everybody's time is limited. And that's just a—that's definitely the case with me, the case with Megan, I think. And when I feel like there's been—I feel like we've collectively not been as focused with limited time to focus on these kinds of things because there's been—for instance, I haven't been working with you on this 'cause we've not been speaking, you know. And we've been feeling—I felt so. And that for me is something that I haven't—I mean, in the past we've had some hard conversations. We've had disagreements, but, um, you know, I had felt—I wasn't working at some of cross purposes in ways around veterans issues as I have. If that's necessary, if that's the only way forward, then that can continue. I don't want that to move forward. I don't know how to do much different from what I'm currently doing, but I am committed to speaking up in the useful context. My own judgment is that that's best, and this is absolutely part of social privilege, that that's best done internally for the most part and not externally. So not by writing Chronicle editorials or articles about veterans at Duke, but being present when called on to speak in helpful ways and to do that in conjunction with communicating with students. I don't always do a good job in communication, just 'cause I get caught up in other things. For instance, like the veterans at the Tenth clerkship service—Megan asked me if I would do that. I assumed that it had to be a faculty member and so I said yes, even though it was with some hesitation. It was actually in the context of the meeting that you attended that I thought, of course, it seems to be something more than just a faculty member speaking. So I reached out to him, talked to Matt Anderson briefly this week, and we talked about how to structure the worship service. I actually would gladly step out of that role if veteran students wanted to do something programmatically. And so I'm actually quite flexible about that. But as an example of trying to be available, and not to be unavailable for veterans. So I'll continue to do that, but I can only do that in the way that I understand is the right way forward.

Logan: I don't have the privilege of shrugging any of that off. I can't. And nothing seems to be changing. You want to continue doing what you have been doing. So I think this has been an unproductive conversation.

Warren: I think it's not clear to me what within the capacity I have I could do differently that would be a better way to be supportive than what—it's not articulated.

Logan: Yes, you can get out of the way for veterans. Veterans have a voice and they deserve to use it. So when somebody invites you to speak on Veteran's Day, and you ask yourself, am I a veteran? Do I know someone who is a veteran? Why don't they speak? That is an example of what you can do. Because clinicians and faculty members have been saying a lot. Now it's time for veterans to speak for themselves, if it wasn't six years ago.

Warren: Yeah, I mean—I don't know either, but it makes me think of Todd Mayberry. It makes me think of AFLE. These are not isolated events.

Logan: Sorry?

Warren: Academy for Leadership Excellence at Edenton Street Church.

Logan: What about that?

Warren: There's a problem with a bunch of civilians getting together to talk amongst themselves about what veterans need, how to treat veterans in your church, led by civilians.

Logan: Didn't originate that space.

Warren: But he participated in it.

Logan: Invited you into it.

Warren: But at some point it needs to trickle up to the organizers, so there's—you can say in a meeting, for example, "Dan, you're not a student veteran," or "Todd, I'm not a veteran. Let's contact someone who is."

Logan: I did say that.

Warren: Has he?

Logan: Yeah. I'll have to take your word for it. I'm trying to remember a line from the Good Friday liturgy. I can't remember it. The line is "not only with our lips, but in our lives." So I don't have reason to trust the things that you tell me. I've said this with the PhD stuff. I don't know what you've done because I haven't seen it. I haven't seen the effects of it. 'Cause the Divinity School seems to be doing the same thing it was doing six years ago. No, it was doing the same things differently. So having a veteran's only spiritual formation group—I don't think that's—that may be an exception to the rule, but tracking, reporting, brown bag lunches, which Dan mentioned, seemed to be exactly what we've been doing for six years. So the proof is in the pudding, I guess. I don't know.

Warren: It could have been a different history to this fall with respect to the way these conversations developed.

Logan: I agree. I think the Divinity School could have handled itself much better. Megan, Todd, you, Dan, Ellen, Elaine, Jeff. I agree. I'm one person. There's a number of people at Divinity School that seem to be working either in concert or in a comedy of errors to make—at least a small handful of veterans, or I'll just speak for myself—that the stuff that I did for five and some odd years was not valued. And if the Divinity School can stigmatize and be biased against me with my CV, it makes me very nervous for veterans after me. What you saw was a reasonable response to unreasonable circumstances. To be treated the way that I had been for over five years was absolutely inappropriate. For Richard Hayes to say that he's done nothing, even though he has an explicit responsibility to the university and to federal agencies to intervene in hostile environments, is a problem. So if your last statement was at all intended to indict me and not those individuals at Divinity School who have an explicit and ecclesiastical responsibility to people like me, I will reject it.

Warren: I didn't mean it as an indictment of you, but an indictment of a system, which you are a participant in, and so are all of us.

Logan: No, I'm not. I wasn't on the alumni whatever groups. I was not invited. My credentials were not trusted for the spiritual formation group that I pitched. And then I gave you and Matt Structure—I mean, that could be intellectual property theft 'cause I have emails to both of you suggesting how it could be done. And Megan and Matt didn't say anything. That is indicting at the very least. But if I get upset, all that you have to do is accuse me of being unproductive, and so I can't. But a reasonable person would probably look at the last five or more years and not judge a number of people in a divinity school very well. And that's why I said I don't feel any internal compulsion to talk to anybody because people have made clear they don't want to talk to me. They don't value me as a participant as you've called me. So I don't think that I am. I would like to be, but I'm not gonna continue to stick my neck out and be vulnerable when that vulnerability is not honored and is oftentimes actually crushed. If nothing else, it's an act of self-preservation. Okay.

Warren: I want you to get credit for one of the things that you put forward.

Logan: Are you both registered to vote?

Warren: I'm, yes. Yeah, thank you.

Logan: Credit isn't lip service. Credit is honoring and respecting and valuing my contributions, and that hasn't happened.

Warren: Right, right. But I think part of—part of that, well—I'm not gonna say anything. I'm not gonna give you any advice because you're not seeking it. So I won't do that. Okay. Well, I don't know how to reach out to you again for more conversation, more context. But I do want us—I do want the whole community of which I'm a part at the divinity school, people who care about veterans, to be able to communicate well and freely with each other and not doubting motives, I think. And I think because it takes a lot of energy away from what can be common projects that emerge from the veteran leaders themselves. And I think I fear getting distracted from that. And I want to continue to be someone that isn't complicit in any mistreatment of veterans. I won't.

Logan: Okay. I'm sorry, dude. I'm sorry that you're not—

Warren: I'm sorry that the team—that it's not—that's something. I wish that would not be the case. Okay, thanks.

Logan: You're welcome.