1. MANDATORY

This is Episode 1 of Homecoming. To listen to all the episodes, head over to Spotify and listen for free. Episode 2 of Homecoming. Episode 3 of Homecoming. Today's April 10, 2017 at 9.03 a.m. speaking with Homecoming client Walter Cruz. This is week one, session one, I'm Hardy Bergman EID, 10, 10, 7, 8. We're in my office at the facility. Okay, Walter Cruz. Okay, what can I get you? Can I get this? These are salad, but actually, we're cheese dressing. And that's all weird. Sure, you want it on this side? Sure. Okay, that's not weird. Sounds good. That's it? Yeah. Okay, sure. Sure. Order up, patty melt, onion rings, and a Caesar salad. Order it. Hey, hi. Hey, the guy in the booth, that's what's here. Oh, okay, got it. Oh, hold on. Anyway, you can take my shift on Sunday. Having one of the photos is church. Sure. You got a church? No, apparently. So how was everything? Oh, it's wonderful. Still really delicious. Good. Anything else? No, no, I'll be right back. Check. Say Heidi, yeah? That's your name? Yeah. Just like the name tag says. Okay. Have you been working here long, Heidi? About four years, I guess. Is that long? Yeah. You are Heidi Bergman, right? That is your last name? Yes, do I know you? I'm Thomas Kurasko. I work for the Department of Defense. Are you asking me if you work for the Department? Yeah, I'm not. I'm so sorry. I do. I do work for the Department of Defense. And you are Heidi Bergman, right? You worked at the Homecoming Initiative. Well, yes, that was years ago. What is this? Heidi, I just have a few questions for you. I don't really have any time. How long did you work at the Homecoming Initiative? Wait. Can we. I have a break. Can we talk outside? Sure. Sure. Right now. Yes, out back. I'll meet you there. Okay. I'll be right there. Okay. Walter Cruz, 26 years old. Three tours. About her one Tuesday. Yeah, yeah, Tuesday. Okay. Wonderful. Now, there's this sort of welcome that I have to do. I'm supposed to read it. I'm going to warn you, it's very, very boring. Okay. Yes, yes. Let's move this. Okay. Welcome, Walter Cruz. Please first allow me to thank you on behalf of the president and a grateful country for your valuable service. We thank you for keeping us safe. It's kind of cheesy, I know. Oh, it's fun. I'm thinking. My name is Heidi Bergman. I'm your case worker, which means I'm at your disposal to assist, however I can, the reintegration process. Our facility is a safe space for you to process your military experience and re-familiarize yourself. What's civilian life in a monitored environment? Which just means that I'm helping to get you situated now that you're back and career-wise, health-wise. Basically, I work for you. Okay. Yeah. Good. You all did really tough work and you deserve this break to kind of get your feet under you. Yeah. The only, I don't want to say mandatory thing, but. Mandatory? Yeah, I guess so. Mandatory elements in this is your lunches in the cafeteria and these weekly sessions with me. So hopefully that won't be too painful. No, no, that's. It all sounds really good and I want to be in compliance with all that. Or just. I know why I'm here and I'm glad to be here. I've talked to other guys who came home and they got really amped and they dove into everything and they just. They had some problems and I don't want to end up like them. Right. But I'm eager. Eager for what? Everything, I guess, or just a life, really. You know, a clean normal life and I don't want to like pollute things back here with my stuff, my stress, or whatever. So I'm glad to be in the program and I'm ready for whatever moves that process along. Good. I hear what you're saying and that's exactly what we're going to do here. Good. Okay. Great. Good. Okay. And you acknowledge that your participation in the Home Communicitive is voluntary and uncoorsed. I need you to further believe. Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Good. Good. That's done. So, how are things going? All right. Like with my room and stuff, like how am I settling in? Yeah. It's good. Everything's fine. Any trouble sleeping? Yeah. Little nightmares, things like that. Yeah. That's very normal. We can see if one of the guys wants a roommate for a couple of days. Huh. You know, like what do you mean? Well, some guys, when they first get here, they find it difficult sleeping in a room alone, you know, away from their unit. Yeah. Just a little too quiet, you know. So I can just, I can ask around if anybody wants to. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. That might be good, actually. Just not, um, not if it's rainy. He's a very good guy and all. It's just, right. I heard there was a little bit of, well, it wasn't really a big deal. Hmm. Do you want to tell me what happened? Hi, Colin. Hello, Heidi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Your, uh, your connections really shudder, are you there? I'm here. Can you, can you hear me? Okay. Yeah. Just barely. I barely got you. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead with the update. Oh. Uh, you, sorry. Uh, yes. We're all set with intake. We've got everyone in their room. Everyone documented. Great. What the hell is. Wait a minute. Colin? I'm in transit here. I'm switching at the airport in Detroit. They, uh, they did a nice job, actually. Hey, how did the presentation go? Oh, fantastic. They love the program. Love the early indicators. Love the broader applications. Oh, that's great. No idea if that means we can re-budget around the numbers we were asking for. Of course, so double talk when it comes to the money. Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't see that. You boy. Right? Uh, I'm sorry. I'm just stepping on a little girl's backpack. So I just stepped on a little girl's backpack. It was in the middle of the walkway. This is a walkway. Yeah. All right. Goodbye. Good talk. Colin? Anyway, I told them we need to move on this, you know? Fast. Fast, fast, fast, fast. Yeah, the early interviews are really promising. I think really encouraging these guys all seem committed to the process. I think I know. And the survey is already trending in a really great direction. I think I still have a lot of time. God, this terminal is enormous. Do you need to run? I do. Yeah, but I really want to impress on you the importance in the, um, in the, the subject histories, right? Right. Of collecting our full data and then showing week by week progress. All right. We need to be surgically precise in identifying their experiences. Exactly what they remember. Absolutely. Yeah. We need to get really granular with all that shit. Okay. It's absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. That kind of brings up an issue that I wanted to speak with you about. I have literally one more minute. Okay. Twenty six. Where the fuck is B26? This is the A, these are the A gates, Heidi. The sign of cheer needs a lot of work. I was just working with a client today Walter Cruz and I think I was thinking as far as being very deliberate. And as you said, granular what we, what if we took a more holistic approach to just the immediate. initial stages of treatment. What? Holistic. I mean, at this point, right here, we're throwing them in the chair and starting the process without developing much of a dialogue and we could get deeper, more individualized outcomes. Heidi, okay. Heidi, I'm going to stop you right there. Okay. Okay. Heidi, I got to say I'm not loving some of these words I'm hearing. We aren't looking for individualized or holistic or whatever results at all, right? But what we're seeking here is information, Heidi. Not relationships, not rapport. Your job is to conduct interviews and record facts. That's it. Whatever these men are holding onto, that's exactly what we need to know. So Heidi, you need to do a 180 on this right now, okay? No, I get that, but the client, the side is-- You just said you don't, Heidi. So you need to do a 180 on that, okay? Got it. It was really calling it was just-- I have an idea for just to improve the data. Look, I'm literally flying to DC as we speak and the guys at DOD are going to ask me where we're at at this. And if I say holistic, they're going to-- I don't even know what they're going to do. So whatever the fuck you're saying to me right now about slowing down, mudding up the broadcasters, that's exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing, okay? We need real proof of concept, just a house of data to drop on the appropriations of people, so they shut their mouths and stop for vericating and open up the approval process. That's our goal, okay, Heidi? Okay. Understood. Yes, understood. Good. Okay. I'm going to run. Hey, hey. Yeah. Wish me luck? Good luck, Colin. I don't know where--I don't know where that is. Colin? Oh, I-- Colin? One last thing. Did we run the background check on the bus boys? Background check the what? The bus boys. Did we background check the bus boys? So we'll be working in the cafeteria. I didn't--I didn't realize that was part of-- Of course it's part-- Heidi, we have to be extremely thorough with the food service. You're my point person there, right? Yes, definitely. Okay, great. So you need to stop whatever it is you're doing right now and get into that. Bus boys, caterers, whatever. Background checks, full workups. I mean, we got to be seamless about that shit. All right. I got it. Okay? Yes, Colin. Okay, got to go. Okay, good luck. Uh, yeah, sure me and him and Shryer were on KP or like we were supposed to cook dinner for everyone, I guess. A collaborative activity, right? Yeah, one of the activities. So we decided we were going to mix spaghetti and meatballs. So we turned in our list to the cafeteria staff and they gave us the stuff back, the ingredients. And we were like, okay, Shryer, you make the salad, I'm going to make the pasta and the sauce and rainy, you're going to make the meatballs. So we did the other ingredients and we're cooking. And at some point he just walks off. He just leaves the kitchen. Where do you go? Yeah, I don't know. He just leaves and the meatballs stuff is sitting there and me and Shryer were just like, okay, I guess we should just do the meatballs ourselves. Sure, yeah. But then after a while Rainy comes back and sees us doing the meatballs and he has this like tantrum, which again I'm not sure why because we he walked off and didn't come back for an hour and people were coming in to eat and we weren't going to be ready. So then what happened? Nothing we just had some words about it and he left. Did it become physical? You're asking if he hit me? Yeah. He did, yeah, but it wasn't anything like, I mean I don't blame him if he was dealing with some of his own shit and it came out sideways. It happens to all of us sometimes. It's me included. Yeah. How does it happen with you? Different ways. Can you give me an example? It's mostly like, I'll get these flashes of things that I could do to myself. It's just tension. Right. Yeah. I mean I wouldn't really do it. But okay, just an example. There's a desk in my room. It's wooden, it's got these sharp corners and the day I got here I don't know why but I saw the desk and I just imagined sitting down and leaning way back and like slamming my forehead into the corners, hard as I could, over and over or like into my eye. But that, that was an extreme. It's not like that all the time. All right. Well how often is that, does that happen? Whoa. I'm sorry. It's just this, there's a, he'll just stop in a second. Wow. That is incredible. Yeah, it's driving me nuts. I'm kind of protected species so we're not even allowed to touch him. I could take care of him. Would you? Yeah, no problem. Dead of night, full camel. He'd wake up in the Everglades. Everyone wins. Oh my god, I'd love that. I'd be forever in your debt. Okay, I've got five minutes. I appreciate your cooperation. Can we step away from the door, please? Thanks. Just over here. So. So I'm Thomas Carasco. I worked for the Department of Defense. You said that. And you are Heidi Bergman. You worked at the homecoming initiative at the Tampa facility? Yes, I did. That was a long time ago. When exactly? I don't know. Well it was before here, so five years or so. Tell me, why did you leave that job? I quit. You quit? My mother got hurt, so I came back here to take care of her. Okay, so you quit your job to take care of your mom, and now you work here at this restaurant? Rest, right? That's generous. But yes, I work here. Yeah. So you're not a counselor anymore? In other words, you're doing this kind of, what kind of mean you'll work. No, it's not mean you'll, it's what I could get. I had to come home. Right, right, you said because your mom got hurt. Yeah. It's not that you're hiding. No. Moving away, doing this different work. You don't want to talk inside you. You said you want to talk out here. What is this? Why are you? You're not hiding. No. Heidi almost done with your break. I'm sorry. Two minutes. I'll be right there. All right. This is just a little embarrassing. All right, I had this whole career, and now I'm back here, I'm doing this, and that's it. I need to get back inside. Okay, I just want your duties at the initiative. I was a case worker. Case worker. What did that involve? I worked with soldiers. I just stepped their mental health. How? How did you do that? How? What did you do exactly to help these men, those soldiers? This therapy, counseling, I told them. I can't, I have to say Ms. Bergman, can you see how this might sound like you're hiding something, this sort of vaguenessy? You see how someone might have this reaction? No, I don't. I honestly don't remember. That's all I just don't remember. This was difficult work, and it just turned out to not be a good fit for me. Can you tell me the names and ranks of any of your individual clients? Do you have any identification? Yeah, sure I do. Here. Let's. Okay. Why are you here? What's going on? As I said, Ms. Bergman, I am asking you about your work at the Homecoming Initiative, but I have to say you seem to be refusing to provide anything. I'm not refusing anything, I just don't remember. What about the name Walter Cruz? Does that ring a bell? Not that I can recall. Homecoming was created and written by Eli Horowitz and Michael Bloomberg, directed by Eli Horowitz. One design editing and music by Mark Henry Phillips, produced by Alicia Van Kuvering and Mark Henry Phillips, casting by Henry Russell Bergstein, with performances by Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac, David Schwimmer, David Cross, Amy Sideras, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Aaron Serozki, Bob Octophti and Philus Somerville. Homecoming is a production of Kim Lipmedia.