Stop Giving Veterans What They Want and Start Giving Them What They Need

We keep thanking veterans with discounts and free stuff.

Meanwhile, veteran health is lagging badly, and in some key ways, it’s getting worse.

I’ve spent the last 13 years in the veteran support space, and I’ve watched organizations come and go. A lot of them were run by good people with big hearts. But many had the same blind spot: they didn’t treat their work like a serious, market-driven product. They also got stuck in the same trap—delivering wants instead of needs.

Despite all the effort and money, veterans are less well than they should be. On average, they carry more chronic disease than nonveterans, most are overweight or obese, and their suicide rates are dramatically higher. On the metrics that matter most, we’re not catching up—we’re falling behind.

Needs vs. wants: we’ve got it upside down

When we talk about “supporting veterans,” we usually mix two very different things together.

Needs look like this:

• Physical and mental health support
• Job training and employment assistance
• Education and skill development

These are boring. They take time, effort, and discipline—from both the veteran and the organization. They don’t make for flashy social media posts. But they’re foundational. Think Maslow’s Hierarchy: health, safety, and the ability to function in everyday life.

Wants look like this:

• Free stuff and discounts
• Special privileges or perks
• Recognition, honors, and feel-good moments

None of that is evil. In the right doses, it’s fine and can even help. But it’s mostly short-term hits of satisfaction—support that doesn’t improve a veteran’s actual wellbeing.

Over time, we’ve poured more and more energy into the “wants” column while quietly neglecting the “needs” column, especially when it comes to health.

Health is the keystone need

At Team Red, White & Blue (RWB), we say your health is foundational, and I believe that to my core. When a veteran’s physical and mental health decline, everything else gets harder: holding a job, staying housed, staying sober, maintaining relationships, even getting out of bed.

When we prioritize health as a community, we:

• Improve quality of life over the long haul, not just for a weekend
• Reduce the likelihood of unemployment, homelessness, and addiction
• Lighten the load on social services, family members, and caregivers
• Give veterans a fighting chance to enjoy the benefits and perks they’ve earned

The health picture isn’t theoretical. In one large VA study of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, 86% were overweight or obese at their first VA visit. Today’s veterans are also far more likely to have a service-connected disability than previous generations—about double the rate from 15 years ago (this is a topic for a different day).

On the mental health side, veterans die by suicide at much higher rates than nonveterans. Beyond that, they experience disproportionately high rates of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders—“invisible wounds” that quietly erode their relationships, careers, and quality of life long before any crisis makes the news.

At the same time, we’ve made real progress in some other “need” areas. Veteran unemployment is now lower than the unemployment rate for nonveterans. Veteran homelessness, while still unacceptable, has been cut by more than half since 2010. When we lock in as a community, we’ve proven we can move the needle.

Health is missing that level of effort.

Why we’re addicted to giving veterans what they want

If focusing on health is clearly more important, why do we keep sliding back to swag and perks? Because needs are hard, and wants:

• Deliver immediate gratification
• Create short-term financial relief
• Make for great PR
• Are easy to implement

Health-focused programs, on the other hand, are messy. They require trained professionals, time, and veterans who show up, stay engaged, and do hard things like sleeping more, drinking less, moving their bodies, and facing issues they’d rather avoid.

So we drift toward what’s easy—toward what makes people feel appreciated right now, even if it does nothing to keep them alive and thriving ten years from now.

The uncomfortable part: personal responsibility

There’s another reason health is so tricky: it’s the one area where nobody else can do the work for you.

Nobody can control what a veteran puts in their mouth (or their brain).
Nobody can force them to move their body.
Nobody can make them go to bed on time.
Nobody can keep them from pouring another drink.

We can build all the programs we want, but if the individual doesn’t decide to use them—to actually make those changes—we’re just wasting time.

And yes, there’s a hard truth here: over time, an overemphasis on wants has fed a sense of entitlement in parts of the veteran community. When “support” is defined as “what are you giving me for free?” instead of “how are you helping me live longer and better?”

I’m not saying every veteran is entitled. I am saying we’ve normalized a culture of perks, handouts, and disability ratings, and unintentionally trained people to value comfort over change. That’s the opposite of what made them successful in uniform.

The veteran community is at its best when it leans into ownership, discipline, and mutual accountability—the traits that made them successful in the military.

Striking the balance: using wants to serve needs

So what do we do? Do we just cancel all the perks and throw out the free merch? No.

The answer isn’t to swing to the other extreme and pretend wants don’t matter. The answer is to repurpose wants so they serve needs.

That looks like:

• Health-focused programs with built-in incentives. Use the things veterans want (gear, discounts, experiences) as rewards for doing the hard work on health. You complete the fitness challenge, you come to the events, you stick with the program—you earn the stuff.
• Education and awareness that doesn’t sugarcoat reality. Be honest about where veteran health actually stands, and make the case that investing in your own body and mind is one of the most tactical moves you can make.
• Tiered systems that put needs first. Make sure everyone has access to the basics of health, housing, and employment. Then layer perks and extras on top as veterans engage in programs that actually move their health forward.
• A community that makes the hard things easier. Most people won’t overhaul their health alone. Building communities—like Team RWB—where veterans move, connect, and struggle together turns hard work into shared work.

Where we go from here

The debate between giving veterans what they need and what they want isn’t going away. It’s complicated, emotional, and politically loaded. But if we’re honest, we know this much:

Free stuff, extra perks, and public praise might feel good in the moment, but they don’t lower blood pressure. They don’t combat suicide. They don’t fix a bad sleep or stop someone from drinking themselves into an early grave.

If we really mean it when we say “Thank you for your service,” then we have to start measuring veteran support in improved health outcomes—not in how many freebies we handed out this quarter.

For veterans, that means taking ownership of the only things no program can do for you: what you eat, what you drink, how much you move, and how you sleep.

For organizations, it means having the courage to design programs that prioritize health, even when they’re harder to sell, slower to show results, and less glamorous on Instagram. It means using wants strategically to drive engagement with needs, not as an easy substitute for doing the real work.

That’s the mission we’re driving toward at Team RWB: helping veterans build genuine, lasting health so they can live longer, better lives after the military.

And if you’re looking for a concrete way to start, I’ll make it simple: sign up for the GWOT-100. It’s free.

Spend 28 days deliberately moving your body—running, rucking, walking—alongside a community of people who are trying to get healthier. You won’t regret it, I promise.

_____________________________

JJ Pinter is a combat veteran and the Deputy Director of Team Red, White & Blue, a nonprofit organization connecting veterans to their community through physical and social activity.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.