Bands of brothers: How veterans groups build social connections among men and boys

One line from the film Black Hawk Down, which tells the story of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, captures an ethos core to the U.S. military: “No one gets left behind.” We hear it over and over. Even in the midst of battle, when Lieutenant Colonel Danny McKnight informs Major General William Garrison ,the overall commander for the operation, that it will take longer than anticipated to retrieve a fallen comrade. Garrison says, “Danny, no one gets left behind.” Those five words constitute a promise among service members, to come home together, alive, wounded, or dead.

Veterans groups carry this promise forward into civilian life. Going back to the earliest days of the republic, veterans have marched to the mantra of “leave no veteran behind.” In doing so, they have served as pioneers in building social connections. This is particularly true with respect to male social connection, given that approximately 89 percent of veterans are men.

Yet despite the outsized role they play in men’s social connections, veterans groups are rarely highlighted in conversations about the social and loneliness challenges confronting many men in America, especially those without college degrees. Twenty-eight percent of men under the age of 30 report having no close social connections.

This is an unfortunate blind spot. Not only because of their vital work for veterans themselves, but also because of the lessons they can offer to other groups and institutions. In order to better understand these lessons, I interviewed leaders and members of two different veterans organizations, Team Red, White, and Blue (Team RWB) and The American Legion (Legion), about how they build connections among men and boys. Here’s what I learned.

History and context

American veterans have forged fraternal associations since the Revolution, such as the Society of the Cincinnati. But it was really only after the Civil War that large-scale veterans organizations began to form. The Grand Army of the Republic—which started the tradition of Memorial Day—formed in 1866, for example, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars started in 1899.

Veteran organizing surged in the aftermath of World War I and II. This is when groups such as the Legion (1919) and American Veterans (AMVETS, 1944) formed. The veteran population peaked in 1980 at around 30 million, but new groups have continued to form.

Social connection has always been a core focus for veterans groups, as exemplified in the preamble to the Legion’s organizational constitution, which includes the line: “To consecrate and sanctify our comradeship by our devotion to mutual helpfulness.” As a consequence, the veteran population is thick with organizational connections. The 2025 Veterans Civic Health Index found that veterans were more likely than non-veterans, 32 percent versus 25 percent, to say they belonged to “a group, organization, or association in the past year.”

This heightened connectivity does not just happen; however, it is the result of intentional efforts by veterans groups, such as Team RWB and the Legion.

Case study 1: Team RWB

“How do we help veterans to build meaningful relationships and form community in their new locations after they take off the uniform?” This was the question Mike Erwin found himself thinking about in 2010. At the time, Mike was an Army officer attending graduate school at the University of Michigan, studying under Dr. Chris Peterson and Dr. Nansuk Park, leading scholars of positive psychology. One finding from their work stood out: the power of relationships.

This had special meaning for Mike, who had served combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and was intimately aware of the challenges transitioning veterans faced as they tried to find new communities outside the military. Not wanting to just study this problem, Mike took action. Midway through his studies, he founded Team RWB, launching programs in a handful of locations, including Ann Arbor, Houston, and Fayetteville.

Local leadership was key. Mike “Sully” Sullivan—who succeeded Mike Erwin as Team RWB Executive Director in 2025—started the Fayetteville Team RWB community. One of his first moves was to partner with the Fayetteville running club to create a regular calendar of events for potential members. As Sully wore Team RWB’s distinctive red shirt during runs, more veterans and service members joined up. Although Sully was an active-duty special forces officer with a strong social community within the military, he still found Team RWB fulfilling: “I was getting just as much or more out of it than the people that I thought I was helping.” Sully’s experience was similar to that of other local leaders, and Team RWB quickly built a national footprint.

According to Mike, “in [version] 1.0 we supported wounded veterans and their families; then we became, in version 2.0, a veteran transition and reintegration organization, where the focus was on connecting and pairing veterans, as they were taking off the uniform, with people in their community.”

In 2.0, Team RWB codified its impact framework as “Enrichment = Health + People + Purpose”; added leadership development programs for its members (known as “Eagles”); and scaled across the country, growing to 234 chapters prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Team RWB members in distinctive Eagles T-shirts. Source: Team RWB.

For example, 64 percent of Team RWB’s members said that being a part of the organization increased their “sense of belonging to a larger community” according to a 2016 study from the Institute for Veterans and Military Families. The figure was 90 percent among members who reported being “very” or “frequently” active with the group. Subsequent studies have continued to show positive impacts on members’ social connections and overall health.

Today, as it observes its 15th anniversary, Team RWB is in version 3.0. Its membership now exceeds 300,000, approximately 65 percent of whom are men. It continues to support veterans with integration into civilian life, but its focus is now on building the leading health and wellness community for veterans. Alongside its robust physical activities—in 2024 it led more than 19,500 events—it offers programs to help members improve sleep, nutrition, and mental health; it created an Eagle Alliance network to connect members to a variety of institutional partners; it regularly assesses its members’ health using its in-house Enriched Life Scale; and it offers scholarships for members to attend training and earn professional certifications in the fitness and health industries.

In these and many other ways, Team RWB continues to innovate its programs and offerings. One thing will always remain constant, however: relationships as the bedrock for its model. As Sully told me, “the lifeblood of Team RWB is the local group of 20 veterans that are getting together on the weekend to go for a run, have some coffee, do a barbecue, bike ride, CrossFit event, whatever it is.”

Case study 2: The Legion Boys State and Boys Nation

“It really starts at the post.” This is how Jeff Bennett, the Program Manager for Boys Nation, explains Boys State and Boys Nation, the Legion’s hallmark civics education activities for young men. It is a reminder that while the programs have achieved national prominence—alumni include Michael Jordan, Neil Armstrong, Bill Clinton, and Samuel Alito, among others—their success starts locally, at more than 12,000 Legion posts distributed across the country.

Local, member-driven programming has always been at the heart of the Legion’s model. Fifty-five “departments” (primarily at the state level) operate semi-independently alongside a national headquarters. Each department, in turn, consists of hundreds of posts embedded at the local level. This model places decision-making authority with the local volunteer members, a departure from much of civil society, which has grown more managerial (i.e., run by paid professionals).

This approach pays dividends when it comes to building social connections among boys. Departments can customize their week-long Boys State experience and bring large groups of young men together for hands-on civic learning. At the same time, however, all the young men join a nationwide network capped off by Boys Nation, a week-long program run by the national headquarters. In 2024, for example, 13,385 high school boys participated in Boys State programs across the country; each Boys State then voted to send two participants (for a total of 100) to Washington, D.C. for Boys Nation.

At Boys State, “the boys are empowered to lead.” When the young men, called delegates, show up, they are elected or assigned to various roles associated with state and local government. In Ohio, for example, where 600 young men participated in Boys State in 2024, delegates acted as legislators, members of the executive branch, members of law enforcement and the judicial branch, and even as journalists.

The same is true for the 100 young men elected by their peers to attend Boys Nation. These participants, called Senators, are assigned to one of two parties, the Nationalists or the Federalists. The Senators then elect their own leaders and start driving the agenda. They submit and vote on legislation, elect a president, and visit various locations across the nation’s capital.

2024 Boys Nation. Source: Legion.

The lifelong impact of these programs has established them as “a week that shapes a lifetime.” Participants often go on to notable professional success. Even more important, however, are the lifelong relationships and sense of place forged alongside other men.

Brian Le and Stephan Oechsle exemplify this impact. After participating in Boys State while in high school, both men have repeatedly served as volunteers. Brian just completed his ninth year as a volunteer and Stephan his twentieth20th. And both describe Boys State as instrumental in their careers.

Stephan came out of Boys State, “much more confident, especially in public settings” and the experience set him on a journey to work professionally in fraternal societies and organizations. He feels there is something important, “an element of safety and vulnerability,” when you can provide young men the opportunity to engage in an intergenerational, male-only setting.

Similarly, Brian, who now works for With Honor, credits Boys State with fostering a passion for public service. He is motivated to volunteer because “we want them to experience something that will be useful to them for the rest of their lives. Whether that means being comfortable in rooms with people who have different experiences than you, whether it means cultivating a service mindset.” And like Stephan, Brian sees the unique impact Boys State, as a male-only program, can have by enabling young men to “look around and see other models of how men can be, other models for male leadership.”

2,200 steps forward

On September 6, 2025, I joined around 80 Team RWB members and partners for the third New York City 9/11 Stair Climb. Over the course of an hour, we walked or ran 2,200 steps to honor the first responders who on 9/11 climbed this number of stairs on their way up to the top of the 110-story Twin Towers.

The day bore many of the hallmarks of a powerful social connection event. It involved an intergenerational gathering of men and women, veterans and non-veterans; we accomplished something physical together; and we were steeped in a sense of purpose and surrounded by reminders of our shared identity as Americans. In these ways, the event was like many experiences I have had within the veteran community. But it is not just veterans who need these connections. Building communities of boys and men is now an urgent task for our whole society, and our veterans can show the way.

Team RWB staff and lead volunteers in NYC for the 9/11 Stair Climb. Source: Team RWB.

Three lessons from veterans organizations

First, fund, support, and participate in more veterans’ activities. Current philanthropic support for veterans does not include significant amounts for social connection work. Any institution interested in cultivating healthier social connections among men and boys should consider investing in, partnering with, or otherwise engaging veterans groups.

Second, measure and evaluate. Since its earliest days, Team RWB has had a zealous focus on evaluation. It created a bespoke Enriched Life Scale, for example, to track and measure its members’ progress on key measures. But this level of measurement capacity is relatively rare. One of the recommendations from a 2023 RAND study of veterans’ social connection programs was for funders (philanthropy, business, government) to increase program evaluation capabilities among veterans organizations. This applies equally to any institution interested in building social connection among men and boys.

Third, build community locally. The backbone of both Team RWB and the Legion is local groups that regularly get folks together. It’s tempting today to search for highly scalable, often digital, solutions to male loneliness, but there is no substitute for cultivating, investing in, and empowering local champions who put in the hard work to get men together and build a sense of tribe.

I’m grateful to Team RWB and the Legion for the help they provided me in writing this article. I also benefited from the expertise of Laura Werber, Senior Management Scientist at RAND. The views expressed in this article are my own and do not reflect those of Team RWB, the Legion, RAND, or the American Institute for Boys and Men. 

Dan Vallone

Dan Vallone is an Army veteran and founder of Polarization Risk Advisory LLC.